


Princes and Knights

by Yminga



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yminga/pseuds/Yminga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John Watson left his hometown for the capital of Baker Kingdom, hoping to become a Royal Knight, he had no idea that he'd find so much more there than a title; namely evil poisoners, damsels in not-quite-distress and a reason to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Princes and Knights

“Help! Please help!”

John Watson’s eyes, which had been intermittently threatening to close for the last few hours of his long trip, suddenly snapped open, bright and alert, as he heard the pitiful cry. In order to determine from where the cry had come he immediately pulled on his reins, the black mare obeying with an alacrity that belied its wariness. 

Determining the sound had come from his left he quickly left the trail, intent on stopping whichever ignominy was going to be committed. He certainly didn’t expect to be stopped by a devilishly tall man running out in front of him and trying to seize his mount’s reins. 

“No, don’t!”

“What the devil-” interjected John, almost too startled to make sure Alte didn’t trample the strange creature that had seemingly appeared from nowhere. His surprise soon made way to anger, though, when he realised the other man was still firmly grasping Alte’s reins near her mouth, effectively preventing him from moving forwards. “What do you think you are doing, sir? Someone has called for help; surely time is of the essence here!”

“Be quiet, man! You’re going to ruin everything!” Such a retort did little to clear away either his confusion or his irritation but it seemed like he would have to wait for any further answers, as suddenly other cries resonated around them, this time battle-hungry rather than desperate.

Everything seemed to happen very quickly then, as no less than seven armed ruffians started to surround them, spoiling for a fight. John drew his sword and sent a glare to the man who had stopped him earlier, now knowing it had been part of the trap; but to his considerable surprise the man wasn’t joining the other ambushers but rather imitating him in getting his weapon out. John’s mind, as minds are wont to do in the most dangerous of situations, abstractly noted that both the scabbard and the sword were of a quality he had yet to encounter in his home county, and then suddenly he was fighting for his life. 

Alte, although a robust and placid mare, was no war mount and was clearly getting nervous. Running quickly through his options, John decided to dismount. While this meant that harm had more chances to come his way, it also made sure that he wouldn’t get thrown off in the middle of the battle and that Alte wasn’t going to be killed – what’s more, he had never really trained as a cavalry man, and knew he’d be more at his ease on the ground. Slapping Alte on the crop and distractedly checking she had gone through the rather loose circle of men surrounding them, he found himself in a position that was both very familiar and total unknown to him. He had already battled several opponents at once, but never some that seemed so keen to see his blood; and he had often fought along comrades, but they were people he knew better than he knew himself, rather than a black-haired stranger. This was discomforting to say the least; he knew nothing of the other man’s habits and abilities, had no way to know if he could be trusted to watch his back.

And yet…As he parried a blow that certainly wasn’t a part of regular fencing – but then he had hardly expected them to play by the rules – John registered that two of their opponents were already on the ground and that a third would soon join them. The other man certainly could hold his own in a row, but it was more than that: their fighting styles simply suited each other, and John found himself marvelling that he could have found such a perfect battle partner so far from home and in such bizarre circumstances.

Between the two of them the fight was soon over, two of their adversaries having run away in fright before they could strike them down, and John had turned to address the man that had somehow become more than a stranger when he remembered his first reason for stopping.

“The Lady!”

Before he could dash off, however, a hand fell on his shoulder and the man beside him fairly bellowed:

“It’s fine, Molly, you can come out now!”

Bewildered anew, John watched as a young woman, clearly a member of the servant class, came stumbling from the nearest bush. He started to reach out to her in concern as he saw she was trembling faintly, but as she let out an enthusiastic little giggle he realised that she was reacting to excitement rather than fright.

“Oh, what a wonderful fight this was! And what dashing figures you struck! I can’t thank you enough, Sire, and you, sir?”

Belatedly remembering his manners, he took a short bow, an action which painted the servant girl’s cheeks a lovely pink.

“John Watson, my lady. I hope-”

His introduction was rudely interrupted by the other man’s silken voice.

“Yes, thank you very much Molly; here’s your payment, and you’ll find your mount a bit further on your right.”

His eyes widened at the impoliteness inherent to the man’s tone of voice, which was cutting and clearly dismissive, but Molly seemed to pay it no heed and she merely did a clumsy little curtsey before leaving in the direction pointed out to her, her cheeks still flushed. Struck mute by all the strangeness he had seen and experienced in the last half of an hour, he finally managed to ejaculate his surprise.

“What the devil was this all about?”

His companion, who had casually started to sift through the ruffians’ belongings after tying them securely together, straightened to look at him, and he was struck anew by the particularity of the other man’s appearance. Although John was by no means a tall man, he had rarely met anyone who towered over him this way, and certainly he had never met so thin a man among expert fencers, as his interlocutor has proven to be. Very pale skin was made paler still by the contrast it presented to the man’s long black coat (again, of a quality he had seldom seen before), its lack of colour highlighting the light grey eyes that were steadily gazing at him.

“Those men,” a negligent wave in direction of the five bodies on the ground “have been harassing travellers in those woods for almost a whole lunar cycle now – pillaging and killing and the like. As these woods belong to the royal grounds, the problem has been brought to my attention. I’m afraid, however, that my reputation as an able fencer has disserved me in this instance, as I was unable to ensure that they attacked me – therefore I enlisted Molly’s help.”

“So she was, what? Your bait?”

“Of a sort.”

“That’s disgraceful.”

John suddenly found himself the recipient of the man’s non-inconsiderable whole attention. 

“Is it truly?”

“Naturally. No matter that she agreed or that she received a financial contribution for her troubles. Putting a young girl in such a position of danger should be avoided at all costs. Surely there were other options; if those are royal grounds, the royal guard should have been able to…”

“Trample around gracelessly and inefficiently, as is their way, effectively warning our miscreants that they should either be more discreet or make themselves scarce from this part of the woods entirely, after which they would have started to strike on grounds much less protected. I think not.”

“I still think…”

“Oh I’m sure you do, John, but you see I really have to warn the incompetent captain of the guard that they have a band of ruffians to put in gaol – in this, at least, they are truly experts.”

John almost choked at the sudden and unwarranted mark of familiarity.

“And to what do I owe this lack of courtesy, sir?” He asked, voice clipped, insisting on the title as if to remind the man across him of their existence. The grey eyes in front of him widened in obviously false surprise.

“Lack of courtesy? I’d have thought that by now, anything but our given names should ring false between us. We have bonded through battle; is there any stronger link in this world?”

John, in spite of all his earlier irritation, felt himself having difficulties repressing the smile that the earnest voice was clearly trying to provoke.

“Perhaps there isn’t; I still believe two men should know at least a little about each other before displaying this level of intimacy.”

“Oh, we know enough. Or at least, I do.”

Truly curious now about this strange man’s philosophies, John queried:

“Do you? And what could you have possibly learnt about me in our fight as brothers in arms, except for a vague knowledge of my fighting style?”

The other man raised a brow, acknowledging and choosing to address the clear challenge John’s words had represented.

“You’re the second son of a noble, though quite poor, family, and your own wish was to become a local physician. Your father, however, wanted you to become a royal knight, and therefore you have learnt to fight, and fight well, and are now on your way to the centre of our kingdom. You’ve been travelling for five days now, but you’ve only been travelling alone for three. Even though I don’t think you’re quite bloodthirsty enough to be a knight, you possess the nobility of heart which is supposedly a condition for knighthood-” a sneer, there, indicated that the man strongly doubted that point “and though easily worried about other people’s safety, you have but little concern for yours. You also hold the conventions supposed by the social order rather lightly, although you treat everyone with respect.”

John was well-aware that his astonishment had to be clearly and inelegantly visible, but he simply couldn’t stop his mouth from opening slightly.

“How…”

A long-suffering sigh indicated that the man had both expected and dreaded this reaction, but he still started to explain.

“Your noble status is made obvious by your possession of both a horse and a sword, while your current lack of fortune is written all across your clothes. You’ve been showing signs for the latest hour that your boots, although clearly well-worn, still hurt your feet – it wouldn’t be the case it those were yours, so you’ve been given them for this trip, most likely from an older brother with feet smaller than yours. The bags I’ve seen on your mount indicate a five or six-days trip, but your horse is fresher than it should be, had you been travelling alone the whole time – no doubt someone from home accompanied you at first with at least another horse, ensuring the mounts wouldn’t get as tired. Your character is clearly discernible from your actions and words – you went to rescue someone because you heard a voice screaming from help, not because you wanted a fight. Still, you stayed and fought against seven people alongside me instead of fleeing, showing a certain brand of recklessness that certainly isn’t expanded to include other people’s life, as you abandoned the advantage your horse represented to make sure it would be safe – you should perhaps try and find it, by the way – and then thoroughly made it clear that I shouldn’t have risked Molly in this way. Your attitude to Molly was also very telling; that you called her Lady when she was obviously a servant girl with no falseness in your tone shows that you put mutual respect above the conventions dictated by our stiff social order.”

“I- Alte wouldn’t have gone very far, I’ll find her easily. How did you know about my wish to become a physician?”

“This was a slightly more difficult, and relied the slightest bit on chance, I must confess. I observed your way to fight, how you were careful not to do any damage – this, coupled with your attentiveness to any form of life that isn’t yours, told me a lot. Added to the small pouch to hang next to your scabbard, in which I can see a few medicinal plants, it seemed to show that you had had at least part of a physician training. As those matters certainly don’t usually concern knights, even though I’m of the opinion that a good knowledge of anatomy is indispensable to a true fencer, it was logical to assume your own dream had more to do with medicine than with swords.”

John blinked a few times as he tried to register this flow of information; finally, he found his voice again.

“This- was amazing.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Extraordinary; truly…extraordinary.”

“That’s not what people usually say.”

“What do people usually say?”

“He’s a Sorcerer – burn him!”

At this unexpected reply, John once more felt a smile draw on his lips, and more unexpectedly saw one bloom on the other man’s lips as well. This look, he decided, suited him better than his previous cold countenance, for all that the man himself seemed surprised to feel it on his features.

“I see I must retract my protests, in any case – you have indeed learned enough from me to be allowed a certain familiarity. But I find myself unable to reciprocate, as the most important information is missing.”

His polite query of the man’s name got swept away as easily as his concern for Molly had been, though by an amused quirk of the lips rather than by a scathing comment this time. Instead of answering, the man lightly bowed, a gesture that seemed at odds with his earlier behaviour but in which John could feel no mockery.

“You’ll learn my name soon enough, John – allow me to benefit from my glorious anonymity for a few more days. And now, I really must depart, before those thieves awake, and you need to find Alte. Good day, John; I have no doubt we’ll meet again soon.”

And with that he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared, three long steps taking him far enough in the bushes that he could no longer be seen from the small clearing in which they had fought. 

Suddenly feeling the return of the deep fatigue that the strangeness of the events had kept at bay for the past hour and a half, John resolutely left in the other direction, whistling in order to call his mare.

***

John didn’t quite know what he had expected to find when he finally arrived at the capital. A castle, certainly – one big enough to contain the royal family and the guards and whoever else was needed to make sure their government could function. Houses around the castle, surely, lavish and complicated because they belonged to the richest nobles. But although he had come upon a sign informing him that he was indeed in the capital of the Baker Kingdom, there was so castle in sight; instead, he had apparently come upon a gigantic market in which his whole hometown could have easily fit, and this included his family’s decrepit mansion. 

Bewildered by the numerous smells fighting for his nostrils’ attention – some more pleasant than others – and by all the noise around him, John began to make his way very slowly through the crowd. His anxiety, which had been steadily rising along with the number of miles that separated him from home, reached its peak as he guided Alte between the market stalls, ignoring the merchants’ calls to him the best he could.

Finally he made it out of the maze-like bazaar, although he suspected that the unexpected obstacle had taken him much further south than what he had anticipated. Querying a guard on patrol nearby about the way to the castle he made it there with no further difficulty, opening wide eyes as the road beneath him became more and more regularly paved and the houses around more and more sumptuous. Eventually, unexpectedly, he found himself in front of the royal edifice, and breath left him in a rush. The ‘castles’ he had seen back home were little more than fortified mansions, with walls of solid stone protecting a few peasants’ homes and the ruling family’s ancestral house; but this in front of him was much more than that. It seemed as much an object of art as it was a means of protection; everything from the barbicans above the footbridge to the machicolations on the ramparts seemed meticulously crafted in solid grey stone, while the covered parapet walk’s roof showed intricate and colourful motifs. The keep itself, massive as it was, cut an elegant figure across the cloudy sky, its pinnacles raised proudly. All in all it was an architectural marvel, and John very much feared that his astonishment was clearly visible.

Leaving Alte in the good hands of a stable boy and getting to enter the castle was remarkably easy as well; finding Lady Hudson, the old family friend his parents had written a recommendation letter to, was not so. After a brief hesitation he had started for the kitchens, figuring the servants there had to know the location of all the nobles’ bedchambers; rather than trying to figure their location on his own, he had asked another guard to point him the way. His interlocutor had thoroughly detailed his attire with a rather derisive smirk but he had answered his query easily enough; John was grateful he hadn’t tried to trust his instincts because he would have left in the completely opposite direction. A few moments later, however, he figured he must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because he was in a part of the castle that seemed much too richly decorated to lead to the kitchens and servants’ quarter. 

“Hey, you there! What do you think you’re doing here?”

Heart sinking, he turned to see another guard, puffed up with obvious annoyance.

“This part of the castle is strictly off-limits to anyone who doesn’t belong to the royal family or the royal guard.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Guard – I never meant to intrude. I wanted to find the kitchens and was given directions to them, but I must have gotten lost.”

The guard didn’t seem terribly impressed by his polite and earnest tone, nor did he seem intimidated by John’s instinctive defensive posture as his hand came near the hilt of his sword.

“A likely story, boy-” here John bristled; he had already lived through twenty-seven springs, and surely the man couldn’t be much older than he was. “The kitchens are in the opposite direction, so I dare say you must have got more than ‘a little lost’ to get here. Now tell me the truth: what are you doing here, huh? Looking for something to bring home? Or did you have something more nefarious in mind?”

Truly chagrined now, John acknowledged two things; first, that the mocking guard from earlier must have voluntarily given him wrong directions, and secondly that the guard in front of him now seemed very determined to believe the worst of him. For a moment he felt truly distraught, pondering his few options. Although he believed he might have been able to fight this man if it came to this, he somehow doubted that getting in a row with one of the royal guards would endear him to the men who’d judge his skills as a potential knight – however, he likewise suspected that the man in front of him wasn’t ready to listen open-mindedly to more protests of his innocence. Just as his imagination started to get the better of him and he wondered if you could be thrown in the dungeons just for being at the wrong place in the capital, a deep and already familiar voice resonated.

“May I know what is going on in here?”

The guard immediately stepped away from the wall he had pushed John against. 

“Sire! I’ve found this suspect individual roaming the royal halls and immediately made sure he could intrude no further. His story as to why he’s here was decidedly strange as well.”

“Was it? Then I must definitively congratulate you on the successful arrest of this suspicious individual, Gregson. I’ll take care of the rest – return to your post.”

The guard – Gregson – who had fairly puffed up with importance at the man’s first words, suddenly deflated.

“Are you sure, Sire? Surely you needn’t bother…”

“I’m sure, Gregson.” The guard paled a little at the imperious tone, immediately saluting and leaving. John’s attention instantaneously focused on the other man, more than a bit surprised.

“Hello, John. What are you doing around here?”

“I- hello. I’m staying with Lady Hudson during my stay at the castle, before hopefully joining the knights’ quarter, and I was looking for the kitchens to ask for directions. But what about you?” John blurted out, before rethinking the question. “I mean, do you…are you a knight yourself?”

Although the other man didn’t dress anything like he’d expected the knights to, it’d at least explain the quality of both the man’s fencing and clothing, as well as the fact that the royal guard seemed to regard him with such reverence. The grey eyes seemed to dance a moment, as if they were amused by the query, before the man answered.

“I suppose you could say that. No need to trouble yourself with going all the way to the kitchens, in any case – I’ll lead you Lady Hudson’s quarters myself.”

Again mystified by the man’s secretive answer, he only belatedly realised his guide had started moving down the corridor and had to hasten to catch up with the man’s long strides.

“Thank you very much. May I ask about what happened to yesterday’s bandits?”

“Oh, the royal guard did a marvellous job of rounding them up and carting them off to gaol” the man answered, and John fancied that his voice was sufficiently sharpened by irony to be considered a weapon in itself. “They are to be judged before the moon is full again.”

“What punishment will they receive, then?”

“I’m sure I don’t know how our esteemed King dispenses justice; but probably they will be hung. This is the standard punishment for burglars and pillars, after all.”

“Hung?” John repeated.

“Certainly.” A curious frown. “Does this bother you? They killed three of their victims, you know, one of them an infant boy.”

“I…I cannot seem to know if this bothers me. Surely justice has to be done; and yet, knowing that, no matter how inadvertently, I was part of those men’s arrests…”

“…Troubles you when you think that those arrests will result in their deaths; John, your heart truly is a wonder of soft-hearted compassion. But I’m afraid we’ve arrived at our destination, and I must depart now. Good day, John; may your knight’s assessment go well.”

Before John could determine if he’d just been insulted or complimented or even thank the man for his help, he was alone once more. Shaking his head slightly to clear it, as any time spent with the mysterious man seemed to fill it with both unanswered queries, he knocked on Lady Hudson’s door. 

***

John didn’t know what he had been expecting when he had knocked on the door of the lady who had been the late Queen Violet’s closest confident and the nanny to both of her children, but it certainly hadn’t been the energetic little woman that had opened the door herself, clad in a rather simple and worn-out dress. The Lady didn’t look like ‘one of the most powerful women in the kingdom’, as his mother had described her to him, but it was true that she had an intelligent sparkle in her eyes that suggested that she would prove to be a worthy opponent against anyone who dared to underestimate her. 

“John Watson, oh my, how you have grown! Come in, come in, let me have a look at you!”

He came in and immediately went for his hat, bowing deeply.

“My Lady, I wanted to thank you most sincerely for your kindness in letting me stay here. My mother sends her warmest regards, and this letter.”

“What a polite young man! You look just like your mother, John – but you must get told this often enough. In any case it was certainly no trouble to accommodate you here for a while, my dear, no trouble at all. Now, just hang your coat on this patter; perhaps you’ll want a moment to freshen yourself up while I call for tea?”

Answering that a little time to rest would be lovely, John took no time in hanging his rather fatigued traveller cloak next to the lady’s own coats and furs before crossing Lady Hudson’s quarters to the room she had pointed out to him with a flick of her wrist. The room was smaller than his at home but much more richly decorated and he was delighted to find that the basin in a corner had already been filled with fresh water. Rapidly freshening up, he tried to concentrate on what would happen next. His travel had taken him a day longer that what he had expected, meaning that the knights’ practice he’d be a part of in order to prove his skills was to be held on the morrow; it left little time for him to prepare. Staring at his reflection in the water, he promised himself then that no matter what happened, he would leave these rooms with no regrets, whether it was to go back home or to move in the knights’ quarters.

***

The rules were simple enough. There were two other contestants desiring to become knights, one a tall, gangly boy that couldn’t be over sixteen and seemed particularly anxious – John’s heart immediately went out for him, no matter that he was an adversary right now – and the other an older, blond gentleman who had raised a polite eyebrow when he had seen whom he was supposed to be fighting against; John guessed that neither Gangly Boy neither him, in his ragged tunic, seemed particularly threatening. He hoped they’d prove him wrong. 

The three of them would mock-fight one another for the first round; if one of them lost his two fights, he was eliminated. The second round would involve a fight against one of the knights. The man explaining this to them was very clear; one position was open, but it didn’t have to be filled today. Even the best among the three of them wouldn't necessarily become a knight.

The first fight opposed the Blond to Gangly Boy; it was quick and brutal. The lad seemed more anxious than ever and the first brutal thrust of his adversary’s sword made him stumble when he parried, leaving his left flank open for attack. As they had been told, the Blond then attacked the weakness with the flat of his blade; although it did little more to the boy than wind him a little, it meant he had lost the fight.

The other knights jeered a little, obviously amused by how quick the fight had been; and as John took the Blond’s place for his own fight, he felt a little irritated. The older gentleman had done nothing out of the rules, he had won fair and square; but John still felt as if it had been cruel to treat this fight as an inconvenience to be done with as quickly as possible. He was himself of the opinion that the boy in front of him was far from ready to be a knight, but he had also seen potential in his first parry and in his almost-perfect posture – he didn’t like the idea that after this second match the boy would be sent home in disgrace, probably convinced of his own worthlessness.

This train of thoughts was the reason why he didn’t move when the knight in charge of the fight gave the signal to attack, even though he was usually more comfortable in the role of the assailant. After a moment of uncertainty, the boy in front of him met his eyes. He didn’t know how to explain what he felt, so he just let his teaching instincts take over and gestured at himself in a move universally known to fencers. Come on, boy. Attack. 

And the lad did; not perfectly, but with surprising strength considering his lanky form. He had left his left side open to attack once again but John didn’t end the fight; he did, however, make an aborted gesture to make it seem like he was going to. Careful. Only attack when you can also protect yourself. Once more, the lad understood, and his next attack was much more careful. John nodded his approval. The joust continued in such a way for about fifteen passages of arms, becoming more and more fluid and graceful, before John finally let himself score a solid hit, and although he involuntarily made the lad stumble and fall back, the eyes that were looking at him were definitively grateful.

Most of the knights obviously didn’t know how to react to this strange version of what was basically a teaching exchange, but the man who had explained the rules to them and was clearly the fencing master was looking at Gangly Boy with a new light in his eyes, so John considered his goal achieved. 

Another consequence of his lengthy fight was that the Blond was definitively taking him seriously now, he found out as the third fight began. Neither of them really knew just how good the other was, so they started with cautious tests and rather slow movements, but quickly enough the fight began in earnest. The other man was a good fencer, solidly built and obviously very enduring, John acknowledged, but he was unimaginative; he wouldn’t have lasted a minute in a brawl, where the rules of fencing duels were only known so they could be ignored more effectively. 

Still, he knew that he couldn’t win if the fight became a duel of endurance, so he took a risk, brutally breaking the steady rhythm of thrust/parry/counter-attack they had fallen into by stepping forward, coming close to skewering himself on the other blade before disarming his surprised opponent and pointing his sword at the Blond’s throat. In his mind he could hear a smooth voice declaring ‘And though easily worried about other people’s safety, you have but little concern for yours’ and it made him smile.

The knights cheered as they both bowed to each other, and John felt an excitement that wasn’t totally unlike bloodlust; it was a rush of self-confidence and delight in his victory, both profoundly satisfying and totally unexpected. He could do this, he thought as he readied himself for the second round, he could become a knight. He could stay in the castle along with the dark-haired not-quite-stranger with the smooth voice.

In the end, it was a good fight; the duel lasted close to fifteen minutes, and it certainly didn’t lack in animation for the knights standing around. John’s adversary was lithe and fast, making up in agility what he didn’t have in strength; he was as imaginative and tricky as the Blond had been conventional, and his fighting style was actually a lot like John’s. In the end, John reflected ruefully from his position on the ground, it had come down to experience. He couldn’t help but feel disappointed, however, and he must have looked forlorn indeed because his adversary held out a hand for him to take.

“No need to look so down, you know! You weren’t truly supposed to beat one of us!”

This was new to him.

“I wasn’t?”

“No! Well I guess that if you had you’d have been chosen on the spot, but that happens really rarely. What you had to do was to show your potential, and I think that both you and Sir Bolrin did that.” Bolrin – so that was the Blond’s name. “If we needed two recruits, I think you’d both be taken; but as you beat him, and he didn’t last half as long against Cor’ as you did against me, I think…” The knight didn’t finish his sentence, but John still smiled all his gratitude at him.

At this moment, the fencing master came forward once more.

“Everyone, I’m happy to say that we’ve found our missing knight!”

***

Far above from the training grounds, Sherlock watched the proceedings with a look of apathy that felt both very familiar and totally insincere right then; although he had never taken an interest in the choice of new knights before, he had to admit that this time he had wanted to know what would happen. His new-found fascination for a fellow human-being had surprised even him, but the truth was that in spite of the string of deductions he had given to impress John, he felt as if he had barely scoped out the man’s limits. The would-be-knight had surprised him far too many times – with his fighting abilities, when he had raised his voice to protest against Molly’s role, when he had reacted with admiration rather than fright or disgust to Sherlock’s deductions… His responses were unlike anyone’s Sherlock had ever known, and he couldn’t help but relish the challenge that trying to understand this man provided. 

So high up he couldn’t hear anything, but this was the price for being unbothered; and anyway, he didn’t need to be closer to recognise John’s small figure. He had repressed a smile at the teaching lesson the man’s first fight had become, figuring it was yet another consequence of John’s great heart, and slightly nodded in unseen congratulations as the man won his second fight and lasted for far longer that the average trainee against Knight Gerove, who despite his usual light-hearted behaviour was a serious and expert fencer.

Reassured now that there was no way the other man was going to leave the castle before Sherlock had him completely figured out, the Prince went in search of someone to annoy, wondering if Captain Lestrade would terribly mind Sherlock pointing out every little thing that the guard had done wrong on its last mission; it was one of his favourite activities.

***

The corridors were surprisingly empty, noted John as he crossed them on his way to Lady Hudson’s bedchambers; he had met a grand total of five people in the last quarter of an hour, and none since he had entered the richest part of the castle. He had already noticed this earlier, as he had made his way towards the training grounds. He had expected such a big castle to be bursting with life, but it seemed the nobles valued their tranquillity over everything else. He had no doubt that the servants’ quarters were rather more animated. 

The reigning silence was soon broken by footsteps, however; and as he raised his head, he found that he was looking into inquiring grey eyes once again.

“Hello. It seems we’ve made a habit of meeting everyday.”

“Indeed. Do I get to congratulate you today, John?”

Meeting those eyes was suddenly difficult.

“I’m afraid not – I was told that I had promise, and to try my luck again the next time such a position opened.” He didn’t say what was obvious, that his family certainly couldn’t afford him to make such trips, using resources and depriving them from what he made as a part-time sword trainer, if he wasn’t going to send home a knight’s salary afterwards.

The other man’s expression went through several emotions in the space of a second before it became perfectly blank once more.

“If the place is still vacant, perhaps you should try your chance again before leaving the castle.”

“No, no, the place was filled. Sir Bolmir – Knight Bolmir, I should say – gave a convincing-enough performance to be considered able for the post.”

This time, the surprise was clearly registered on the man’s face.

“But you beat him! I might have to reconsider holding the knights’ intelligence as superior to the guards’ if they can argue with such a result.”

In spite of everything, John smiled a little.

“You saw then.”

The man didn’t reply to his badly-masked query for more details as to how he had known this, choosing instead to question him.

“Are you relieved, John?”

The enquiry would have seemed strange and even brusque if John hadn’t known what the other man had seemed to guess about him the day before last; as it was, he understood that he was asked whether he would now try and pursue his own ambitions. 

No matter how much he liked the tired feeling that came after a fight or the happiness brought by teaching, nothing quite beat feeling that you had had a part in saving a life: this was something that he believed in, something that he knew. And yet he couldn’t just say it, because not making it as a knight had been a disappointment. Leaving his hometown for the first time had made him realize what he was missing out; now that he knew he’s soon have to leave, he found that he wanted to have the chance to say that he knew the capital, no matter how big the city was, he wanted to take revenge on that guard that had deliberately misled him, he wanted to live adventures such as the one told by the beards. He wanted to get that mysterious man better.

This really wasn’t something he could admit to.

Before he could reassemble his thoughts enough to answer the difficult query, two men approached them, looking as if they had been walking for a while now.

“Sherlock, honestly, when will you stop this infantile behaviour? I assure you, your belief that I don’t have better things to do with my time than to run after you is quite unwarranted – and you were supposed to be in the throne room an hour ago.”

The dark-haired not-quite-stranger that wasn’t at all a stranger or even a knight must have replied something but John didn’t hear it, occupied as he was to realise the depth of his blindness and naïveté. The man that had approached them had his face engraved on every single one of his purse’s coins, and there was only one person named Sherlock that he could think of.

Abruptly coming back to his senses, he dropped to one knee.

“Your Highness.”

King Mycroft threw him a quick glance, as searching and thorough as his brother’s had been. He had the feeling he had just been neatly categorised as uninteresting and that he would have been forgotten soon thereafter if he hadn’t been in the Prince’s company.

“And you are?”

The world must have titled five degrees off its axis then, because John clearly heard the Prince answer.

“This is Sir John Watson – Knight John Watson, actually. I’ve decided to make him part of the Prince’s Knights.”

John stayed rigidly immobile, convinced that the world would obediently right itself once again if only he didn’t move a muscle for the next five minutes. 

“I see. Sherlock, may I have a word with you?”

“Certainly, brother of mine.”

***

“There are no ‘Prince’s Knights’.”

“There is one now.”

“And the reason why there are no Prince’s Knights is because you ardently refused to even consider the idea the last seven times it was suggested.”

“I’m relieved to know your memory isn’t failing you yet.”

It was the right place in the conversation for a ‘why?’, and this was precisely the reason why Sherlock knew Mycroft wouldn’t ask.

“May I remind you that the elusive “Prince’s knights’ quarters” don’t exist?”

“He is but one man, Mycroft. I seem to remember there’s an empty room attached to mine.”

Now he had done it; his brother was sincerely surprised. It didn’t show on his large face, but Sherlock knew him enough to tell. Wanting a knight all to himself could have been another “caprice” (Mycroft’s name for it, not his); deciding to actually share his living space with the man meant this was no laughing matter. Sherlock could almost see the reasoning being pursued in his brother’s mind, so identical to his, could follow him as he brought up and discarded theories. Not a tryst; Sherlock got bored of his lovers very quickly, he certainly wouldn’t have made arrangements to share a room with one. Not a way to curry political favours with the man’s family – even if Watson had had anything to offer to the Kingdom, Sherlock’s only use of the court intrigues was to mock them and occasionally to expose them, contrarily to Mycroft who adored them. Not an enemy – no doubt Mycroft had some records of the Watson family somewhere in this huge brain of his, and anyway John’s honest nature was written all across his features. 

Only two serious hypotheses remained; either Sherlock had seen something in John Watson that he wished to explore, or he was trying to mess with his brother. Mycroft ran an even more thorough check of John Watson’s kneeling figure before throwing an exasperated glance at Sherlock; obviously he had decided on the latter theory and had little patience for what he perceived to be another of his brother’s games. 

This meant that Mycroft had missed the hidden depths of this man, even after a second glance. A delighted smile curled the Prince’s thin lips. He now had the proof that he’d been right; learning to read and understand John Watson was going to be the most interesting challenge he had had in a while – and once he was done, surely John could become part of the royal knights or something, so that he didn’t have to bother with the other man anymore.

His brother wasn’t totally finished, however.

“Fine, Sherlock. I’ll indulge this little caprice of yours-” Sherlock frowned, there was this word again “-for two lunar cycles. A knight’s salary isn’t negligible, and I personally believe we have enough of them right now. So you’ll have to convince me that hiring this man was a necessary measure before your time runs out.”

Sherlock was unconcerned about this precision, sure that unlocking this man’s secrets would require much less time than that – actually, it was convenient for him, as it meant he’d no longer have to think of an excuse to get the man off his service and out of his bedchambers once he had no more use for him. However, his brother did raise an interesting point.

“But surely paying for Knight Watson’s salary will barely dent the generous donation sent by Count Bolmir.”

Mycroft blinked. Sherlock didn’t know if it was because he wasn’t supposed to know this or if it was because he seldom expressed interest in any underhanded deals his brother partook in. 

“The choice of Sir Bolmir as a knight had nothing to do with money, Sherlock.”

“It was certainly no reflection of the man’s talent. It had everything to do with money.”

“No it didn’t. However, it did have to do with the fact that our allies are getting sparser, our enemies stronger and that ensuring Count Bolmir’s loyalty was essential to preserve this Kingdom’s continual survival, Sherlock!”

“Always the perfect son, right Mycroft? Heaven forbid something happened to Mummy’s dear Kingdom.”

“Your sarcasms don’t reach me, Sherlock. I know of your feelings towards what is left of our parents’ lifework, and you know I don’t share them. I’ll do whatever is necessary to keep our heritage intact.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. I had actually meant to tell you; I’m now engaged. To Princess Adler. The wedding is in two months.”

And as Sherlock’s mouth stayed shut for once, Mycroft stalked away, his last words trailing after him.

“I still await you in the Throne room; be sure to come at once.”

***  
John had had some time to think about what had happened as the two brothers conversed at length. It hadn’t been that useful in terms of coming to terms with the fact he had called the Prince’s actions disgraceful; but at least he had made his decision.

“John.” Suddenly the grey eyes were back; except in the ways that they weren’t. Because they didn’t belong to a strange man appearing from around a bush anymore, or even to a knight defending him against a guard. They belonged to a Prince. The Prince. Prince Sherlock.

It was still a difficult fact to process.

“Let me escort you to your new rooms. You’ll be able to get your luggage from Lady Hudson’s rooms later.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline your kind offer. Sire.”

“What do you mean? You’ve already got lost once in this castle, and I have to go back to my chambers anyway. You coming with me is the most practical arrangement.”

For such an intelligent man, Prince Sherlock sure could be obtuse.

“I meant I refuse your job offer. Your Highness.”

“But you hesitated.”

“I’m sorry, what? Sire?”

“Stop with all the Sires. When I asked you whether you were relieved to go home, you hesitated and didn’t answer – this clearly meant you weren’t.”

“You won’t be surprised to hear you’re quite right once more. Sire.”

“Then why won’t you be my knight?”

John couldn’t help but feel his inwards twist the slightest bit at the man’s possessive tone; but he resolutely ignored how it affected him to hear this voice calling him his because this was part of the problem. The man seemed to consider him as a pet, and this was an ignominy John wasn’t willing to accept.

“Perhaps no bond is as thick as the one existing between comrades in arms-” he couldn’t use his voice as a weapon like the Prince did, but he was still fairly sure that his irony came clearly across “-but surely the one between a Prince and his knight is thick enough to require trust.” And you didn’t deceive a person you trusted. This is what it all came down to, in the end; and John was determined to be steadfast on the subject. Nothing the Prince could say would make him reconsider; actually, if he even tried to bring up the matter of his high salary as a knight, John might well have to break the man’s nose, Prince or no Prince. 

No, nothing could have made him hesitate – except for what the Prince actually did, of course.

“Hello, John. I’m Sherlock.”

His eyes snapped up to meet light grey ones, and he realised it was the first time they had actually exchanged eye-contact in this conversation. He likewise remembered just why he had decided to keep his gaze on the vicinity of the man’s shoulder; those eyes were the man’s most dangerous weapon.

“It was an honour fighting with you against those ruffians – seldom have I met a man on whom I could depend so completely in a row. I would be much obliged if you’d let me offer you the opportunity to fight alongside me on a regular basis.”

John could barely breathe as Sherlock brought his lips next to his ear and – impossibly – lowered his voice even further.

“I’d also like the chance to get to know you more…thoroughly.”

John wondered dazedly if this getting-to-know-you thing included a bed before snapping back to his senses. And then he realised that he had beautifully lost this argument.

He found that he didn’t mind that much.

“Now come. I still have to show you our rooms, and my brother is no doubt impatiently waiting for me.”

John followed reflexively before actually registering what the man had said. His eyes widened as his step faltered. Our rooms?

***

Lying on his cot, having long grown used both to its great comfortableness and to the fact that its length was greatly reduced by a heavy chest containing many unidentifiable items, John sighed, turning his mouth down. He had been living with the Prince as his knight for the past two weeks and it was nothing he had hoped for.

His first source of bewilderment had been the Prince’s bedchambers; although the furniture was as richly decorated as one would expect from a royal bedroom, no one had seemingly tidied anything up in the last five years; his trying to do so, if only to access the bed and writing table that occupied the smaller room he was to have, was met with grudging acceptance at best and frank annoyance at worst from Sherlock.

The man himself wasn’t easy to live with; apart from his weird moods and lack of conversation, he also had the disconcerting habit of staring at John like he was trying very hard to map him out, sometimes for hours on end. A whole corner of the room was dedicated to what John would have called Alchemy if the idea of the Prince himself training in the Dark Arts hadn’t been so ridiculous and very often emitted strange noise and unpleasant smells.

Having shared a room with an elder sibling for thirteen years he was well accustomed to the necessity of compromises when living with someone and he could certainly have dealt with the Prince’s eccentricities if it hadn’t been for the one habit John couldn’t accept or get used to.

The Prince had indeed a tendency to disappear without a word, not only in daytime, but also at night – being a light sleeper, John often woke up to the sound of the door being shut as Sherlock left his room or again when he came back. He had first thought that the Prince was going off to see one of his lovers – perhaps Molly, the kitchen girl who had seemed so enamoured with him? But the Prince’s attire didn’t seem to corroborate this theory; he always left fully armed and when he came back his first action was often to meticulously clean and sharpen his blade, no matter the hour.

It simply didn’t make any sense. If the Prince wanted to train, why would he do so in the middle of the darkest hours? If he was engaged in a fight, who did he fight against and why did no news of his action reach them by the light of the day? 

John was admittedly aggravated by the Prince’s secrecy in those matters. Certainly they hadn’t known each other for a long time, but the enigmatic man had made him his Knight – did this title mean nothing? Remembering how the other man had denied him the knowledge of his identity in the first days of their acquaintance, he bitterly admitted to himself that he had been forewarned from the beginning. In spite of his beautiful speech, the Prince clearly didn’t trust him, either to have his back or to even know where he was going; this much was made clear with almost every action the Prince took. 

The sensation of being useless, of living nothing was one he was well accustomed to – but it had never seemed so overwhelming before. 

***

His uncertainties were played up in a most unexpected and unpleasant way on the following day as he went on his daily visit to Alte. 

“Yer horse has been there a while, Gent.”

The voice belonged to a freckled youth, a bit taller than he was, heavily muscled by his work in the stables. He wore his obnoxious smirk like one would a well-loved gown. 

John wasn’t much impressed.

“Certainly, sir. And I expect that she’ll be here for a while yet.”

His display of courtesy was a mistake; thinking himself mocked, the young man adopted a full-out sneer.

“I ain’t no sir. But I still know that if she’s staying, you hafta pay up.”

“I’ve certainly never heard about this before. As a knight, I thought-”

The idea of relying on his title to get people to listen to him had been until then repugnant, and it created a small jolt in his stomach to hear himself say that he was indeed a knight. His counterpart, however, only smiled mockingly - John didn’t know how he had expected the rude young man to react, but it certainly wasn’t with incredulity.

“Right, mister Knight. You can sure have a place in the stable, and I’ll make sure to treat yer horse particularly well.”

The sarcasm in the young man’s tone was more than obvious.

“I assure you I’ve been dubbed as the Prince’s knight.”

“A Prince’s knight, eh? Never heard of that. And I haven’t seen you much around him either – are you sure he knows you’re supposed to work for him?”

John froze slightly, more because the stable boy’s words painfully awoke all his doubts than because of the inherent impertinence in the other’s queries. He didn’t know how to answer, but it turned out that he didn’t have to. 

“Having a little fun, Melchior? I’m sure Sir Rave would be glad to hear his stable boys are efficient enough to take time off to work to rib newcomers and still finish their work on time.”

The threat was thrown light-heartedly enough but was very clear all the same and the boy – Melchior – quickly left after a last sneer in his direction. John turned to thank his helper, finding a young woman whose well-made dress indicated as a servant of a high-enough status.

“That boy’s certainly annoying. He’s always picking on the newest visitors.”

Her words were slightly drawled as well and he wondered whether anyone from the capital knew how to speak without elongating the syllables.

“Indeed. And you have my thanks, my Lady.”

“I’m no lady. My name is Sally, and I acted more out of pity than sense of justice. Seems to me like you’ve already have enough on your plate, dealing with the Freak every day.”

His thankful smile immediately disappeared. Surely he had misunderstood her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Yes, we’ve heard you were his latest whim. Fat luck, that, but then I guess you should have known that it was better to run. Hopefully for you he’ll tire soon enough of having you around.”

This unexpected strike at his current deepest fear left him silent once more and the woman continued, apparently satisfied. 

“Can’t bash the hand holding the purse the money comes from, can we? A royal freak is still a royal, I guess. Not the first time I’ve seen fear of repercussion shut a man’s mouth when he would have talked.”

He’d have liked to explain to her supercilious smirk just why his silence was more than cowardice or simple loyalty to his employer; but truthfully, he didn’t know how to explain or if there even was something to explain, so he simply let his mouth close and his brow furrow slightly. The young woman seemed satisfied by his lack of answer and her mouth became a genuine smile.

“If you get tired of being around him all the time, just drop by the kitchen and ask for my name – I’m always around anyway.”

He gave a little nod and went back to the Prince’s bedchambers, sighing when he was met with an empty and messy room. He certainly had a lot of thinking to do.

***

This night, when Sherlock silently rose from his bed and left, John sat up. It was too much. He had taken too many superior or pitying looks, too many derisive remarks about him being lucky to be so highly paid for a job that didn’t seem to entail more than being stared at or talked to a few hours a day, too many blush-inducing whispers about why the Prince did keep him around. He had enough.

Fighting the pull of sleep wasn’t easy, but he was fuelled by his anger and determination, and as the Prince silently shut the door after himself a little after dawn, he was still awake. He crossed the room in two steps and, made daring by his sleepless night, seized the Prince’s arm. Before he could speak, however – to say what, he certainly had no idea – his thoughts derailed.

Sherlock’s by now familiar coat was wet. But it hasn’t rained in days, his mind murmured faintly. 

John stared uncomprehendingly at his hand; it was hard to be certain, but it seemed to be smeared with black or dark red liquid. 

The world seemed to tilt a bit to the side; John dimly thought he should get used to this sensation, considering it seemed to happen often enough when near the Prince. 

“You’re hurt.” His tone was curiously bland.

“John, for Mercy’s sake. It’s barely more than a scratch.”

It occurred to John to wonder just how many times this had happened. Had the Prince often stumbled in, tired and hurt, while he slept placidly a few feet away or laid away despairing about the man’s lack of trust in him? He felt a sudden burst of contempt for the fool he had been – some Prince’s knight he was. But he now had his chance to act and earn his master’s trust.

“Please, Sire, let me take a look at it. You’ve already deduced I had some training in the healing arts and-”

“Certainly not. Let’s not make too much of a trifle.”

The two men seemed to realize at the same time that John’s hand was still circling the Prince’s arm and Sherlock impatiently shook it off. 

“I’m perfectly fine. Please return to your room.”

The perfectly-fine man then proceeded to stand up and almost fall over again. He help up a placating hand – wincing as it made his muscles stretch beneath his wound – easily anticipating the knight’s reaction.

“A simple moment of light-headedness. A good night’s rest and I’ll be fine.”

John didn’t bother to point out to the man that there certainly wasn’t enough left of the night to constitute a “good night’s rest”, nor that even if there had been, he had never known the Prince to sleep more than three hours in a row. Instead he used what was probably the only weapon at his disposal. 

“Sherlock, enough!”

The Prince’s head snapped up and John knew that he had him, even as the man automatically wiped all traces of surprise off his features. In spite of the man’s clear invitation to on the day of John’s unconventional dubbing, John had never made use of his given name before. Sticking to formalities had somehow always seemed essential to his continued sanity, but he suddenly found out that he didn’t care much about sanity any longer. It was a gamble he was ready to take.

“Sit down and stop acting like a petulant child. I have to put a dressing on this if you don’t want it to scar durably.”

Before the Prince could find his voice again, John disappeared in his room to look for the right materials to create a poultice. Unseen from his knight, Sherlock’s lips stretched in a rare smile. 

***

“How did you ever manage to get stabbed in the arm at this time of the night?”

The question was asked rather abruptly, but the hands putting the dressing around his arm stayed extremely gentle. It was all very fascinating.

“Mycroft.”

The hands stopped then.

“The King?”

Sherlock thought of sarcastically asking whether John knew many Mycrofts, but figured it was rather a bad idea to annoy someone who had his hands less than two inches away from your wounded arm.

“The guards are mainly imbeciles – and the knights are barely better. They certainly lack the finesse necessary for the missions I undertake.”

Sherlock could almost follow John’s train of thoughts as the other man remembered the circumstances of their first meeting and – finally – realised why the prince of his kingdom had been chasing bandits alone. 

“I must confess to some surprise that you’d obey the King. You certainly…don’t seem to see eye to eye on many subjects.”

Sherlock’s lip curled disdainfully. Obey the King indeed.

“Although most of those missions barely represent a challenge of any sort, I agreed to fulfil them for the rare few that come around with some interesting features. It certainly has nothing to do with my brother.”

“I’m sure, Sire.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow as he considered the man in front of him, but his knight’s eyes, as they met his, were filled with nothing but total innocence. He let the comment go, lips twitching slightly.

“I do believe this scratch has been beaten in submission by the three layers of bandage you’ve wrapped around it.” A slight tightening of the said bandage – clearly a warning – was his only answer, and inexplicably he found himself fighting a smile yet again. “We should both find some rest now.”

And they both did.

***

John had made it clear that night that things had to change, and they did; he found himself joining the Prince when he left to get documents, meet with mysterious individuals (or not-so-mysterious ones, since one of his main sources of information appeared to be the children working in the castle or living on the streets in the city) or fight some ruffians, now understanding and following the man’s strange schedule. 

They had settled in what could have been called a routine, had the word not been incompatible with Prince Sherlock’s very self. As it was, the two men at least adapted beautifully to each other, John learning to ignore the constant mess their bedchambers were in and Sherlock managing to forgive him when he had to take a break to eat or sleep during missions. It was, however, on said missions that they found themselves growing always closer together. It made a certain amount of sense, considering they had immediately fought alongside each other when they had met, and more than once John had found himself smiling ruefully as he reflected on the words the Prince had used to convince him to let Sherlock call him John. They had indeed bonded through battle. 

The ‘cases’, as Sherlock referred to them, seemed to slowly take over all parts of his life now that he accompanied Sherlock on them, and John fairly suspected the Prince to accept more of them on purpose or even to look by himself for mysteries that had little to do with things a King would ask a Prince to take an interest in. Indeed, some of the cases certainly had “interesting features”, to borrow the Prince’s turn of phrase: John thus found himself looking for a small blue gem in a poultry market, trying to decipher an ingenious code made of small drawn dancing men that was revealed to be nothing more than a means of communication between two secret lovers or even listening to the bewildering tale of a red-headed man who had come all the way from the city of Coburg to complain of his sudden unemployment. Many of the cases, however, weren’t noteworthy, mostly involving ridding the royal grounds of thieves and ruffians. 

And yet, it was on such an unexciting case that John saw confirmed in the most unlikely way that he had indeed found his purpose as the Prince’s knight and companion.

***

They had been following the bandits they were chasing for close to an hour, and John observed, not for the first time, that the Prince followed trails like no hunter John had ever met. Certainly parts of the two processes were identical, as both included looking for footsteps and other small signs of the prey’s passage; but John was pretty sure the steady stream of muttered deductions that was barely reaching his ears was specific to Sherlock. The man seemed to employ a curious combination of physical clues, analysis of the hunted villains’ states of mind and truly fantastical leaps of logic – yet John never doubted that they were on the right track, and indeed from time to time a detail stood out that was obvious enough to indicate even to normal people a group of armed men had gone through those bushes a short time previously.

Surely enough, the Prince and his knight soon found themselves engaged in a fight with five surprised ruffians. No matter how many times the scenario repeated itself, John kept forgetting the sense of utter rightness permeating their fights alongside each other, or perhaps convinced himself that his memory had to be flawed. And yet here it was again, as always, this easy camaraderie that according to all accounts shouldn’t have existed after little more than a lunar cycle of knowing each other.

The two men knew by now just what they were capable of together: the row should have been over promptly, and for a while it seemed this way; but then everything went wrong very quickly. John stumbled on a tree’s large root. Sherlock whirled around in concern, blocking the attack coming from his right while doing so. A man they had both thought incapacitated painfully got himself up on his elbow and tried to stab at the Prince’s shin. His aim was off but it was enough to distract Sherlock, and John’s throat closed off as he saw that their fifth opponent, who had stayed a bit outside the fight until then, was about to take advantage of the Prince’s momentary lapse of attention. Rather than scream a warning the knight literally threw himself at the attacking man, heedless of the danger involved in such a daring move. Brutally shoving the Prince aside, he tried and failed to repel the blow, biting his lower lip hard enough to taste blood as the sword left a trail of fire-like pain in his left shoulder. Immediately pressing his hand to the deep gash there, he stumbled against the large tree they had been fighting under as the Prince defeated their two remaining adversaries faster than even his trained eyes would follow.

Having confirmed that in spite of his nerves trying to tell him otherwise his arm hadn’t nearly been ripped off his body, he closed his eyes in shame. His clumsiness had almost killed the person he had sworn to protect; what kind of knight stumbled over tree roots? The could-have-beens kept repeating themselves in his mind’s eye, in an unbearable but inescapable loop of agony. If he hadn’t been fast enough, the fifth man’s attack could well have felled the Prince. If his master hadn’t been such a skilled fencer, he could have been seriously hurt while battling two opponents. 

This train of thoughts explained why his first words as Sherlock joined him were desperate apologies.

“Sire! I’m so sorry…really sorry. I can’t – ah – apologize enough and I-”

Sherlock’s eyes widened for a split second, reflecting his surprise; in spite of everything, John felt the relief he usually associated with the Prince’s bewilderment, having obscurely understood that those too-brief moments were one of the main reasons Sherlock kept him around as his knight.

“Never mind this. Are you alright?”

It was John’s turn to be astounded. He detailed Sherlock’s features carefully, despite knowing how little the man could be read. He had seen anger, or at least annoyance, flash across the Prince’s face as his brother addressed him often enough to think he could identify it, but he couldn’t see any in the pursued lips and deeply furrowed brow in front of him. The deep tenor voice didn’t sound angry either, but rather…panicked? John frowned a little, unconsciously mirroring Sherlock. That didn’t make any sense.

“John! Are you alright?”

Definitively a trace of panic here. John didn’t really understand, but that wouldn’t do.

“Certainly Sire – don’t worry. I’d still like to apologize for my clumsiness-” 

“In what? Saving my life? Stop saying such idiocies. Now if you were to apologize for your fool-hardiness I might accept, but I somehow believe it wouldn’t be sincere.”

John was definitively confused.

“But I – and the root – you were distracted from your fight.”

A raised eyebrow.

“I do believe you’re delirious. The blood loss must be more debilitating than the quantity of blood currently staining your armour would indicate – which means we should immediately head for the castle. Come on, John.”

Silenced by the Prince’s imperious look, John took the arm that was offered to him, leaning first hesitantly and then more freely on the other man’s shoulder as they started walking. The trip back was long, the pain in his shoulder fairly excruciating and although John knew it was actually a good sign that he could still feel his arm at all, it didn’t look like such a good thing right then. He also couldn’t help but worry about what would happen next – although he had completed sword-training with both hands, his left was clearly the dominant one and he doubted he could be of any real use for a while now that he was hurt: Guilt’s cold fingers hadn’t released his heart yet and they pressed a bit harder at this thought. But in spite of everything, Sherlock’s body near him was a warm and reassuring anchor, he kept catching the worried inquiring glances the Prince surely thought were discreet and he simply couldn’t ignore the growing part of him that was quite certain it was all worth the wound. 

***

The royal physician Sherlock had insisted on visiting in spite of the very early hour was nothing John had expected; instead of a grey-haired man, he found a fine-looking lady who instantly adopted a long-suffering look as she saw who was visiting her, a look that quickly turned to concern as she caught sight of John's left arm. 

The Prince stayed at his side as she expertly applied a poultice and dressed the wound, an unmoving and silent presence that attracted more than a few raised eyebrows from the obviously curious woman. John had thought that by now the news the Prince had “acquired” a knight had circled the castle, but either he had overestimated the rumour mills’ power or Ella, as she had asked to be called, didn’t listen to gossip. 

After congratulating him on managing to keep the wound from bleeding too much and asking if he had ever received medical training – Sherlock smirked a little then – she pronounced him fit to go, recommending that he didn’t move his arm around for half a lunar cycle, longer if he could help it. He tensed a bit at the news, wondering anew what use he would be to his master without his dominant arm, but his dark thoughts were interrupted by a hand briefly holding and shaking his (right) shoulder.

“Considering the Princess of Bohemia is expected to arrive in the week and our activities will then mostly consist in an endless stream of boring diplomatic matters, I’m quite certain we’ll manage.”

John ducked his head a little to smile and thus missed the physician’s frankly speculative stare at them both as she heard the Prince casually refer to himself and another human being as a plural pronoun twice, but Sherlock didn’t. Disdaining to answer her curiosity with anything else than a raised eyebrow, he pointedly took hold of John’s elbow and more-or-less gently guided him out of the woman’s domain and towards their home. 

***

The following days were full of a tension John didn’t understand. He had at first feared that Sherlock hadn’t been sincere when assuring him that he didn’t consider the incident his fault, but he had soon come to realize that it was rather tied to Princess Adler’s impending arrival. He had asked the Prince whether he knew her personally, but while Sherlock’s answer of “Had a case concerning her once.” certainly made it seem like there was a story there, it also appeared to John that the problem went deeper. 

In spite of the time he had to devote to this enigma now that he was almost confined to their bedchambers by a worried Prince he hadn’t come any closer to understanding his master’s emotions by the day clarions resonated to announce Princess Adler’s arrival. Stealing a glance at Sherlock from where they stood in welcome on the machicolations, both in their best attire – which meant much more for the Prince that it did for him, as he had simply tried to decrease his less-worn gown – and finding him frowning, he resolved that he would find his answer before the royal wedding’s celebrations could come to an end.

He certainly didn’t expect another, much darker mystery to be presented to them, one that would involve much higher stakes than a Prince’s feelings about his brother’s marriage. 

***

After living in the castle for one month and a half, John really shouldn’t have been surprised by the time it took the approaching cortège to enter the fortress, but he was anyway. The welcoming party he belonged to had had to stand for what seemed like hours as Bohemian guards and guests slowly made their way into the building and John had wished more than once that he’d be allowed to get back inside and rest his feet a little. To distract himself, he started observing the rather magnificent show the colour of the noblewomen’ dresses created and even tried to apply what little he had learnt of Sherlock’s method to know more about the people whose eyes he met, with little success however.

Few individuals truly caught his attention; the Princess first and foremost, of course, her long dark blond hair being offset by a beautiful ruby placed on her forehead. He was mainly surprised to see that she seemed almost uncomfortable, keeping her head low rather than greeting her hosts as was proper, and that she rode alone, with no maid at her side. A guard among many others was the next person he noticed, if only because he was incredibly beautiful, with a youthful, almost androgynous face. Feeling his eyes on him the guard raised his gaze, smirking impertinently and winking at him. Blushing, John averted his eyes and met Sherlock’s instead, who looked from him to the guard twice before the corner of his mouth rose a little, the way it did when he was darkly amused by something mere mortals would probably never understand. John deflated a little; he didn’t know exactly what emotion he’d been hoping for, but it certainly wasn’t sardonic amusement.

Eventually, though, every guest was let into the castle and assigned to a room – John spared a compassionate thought for the poor castle’s help, which had been working relentlessly for the past two weeks to make sure everything would be ready in time – while the Princess, her regent and their trusted advisors were ceremonially brought into the throne room for an official welcome. Sherlock went along, of course, and thus John did too, marvelling as always at the richness of the décor.

At first everything seemed fine – Bohemia’s regent and King Mycroft exchanged welcomes and pleasantries in a cordial tone while Sherlock, bored out of his mind, drummed his long fingers on the side of his smaller throne and shot John exasperated glances he answered with tolerant smiles. A certain tension nonetheless permeated the room, and everything came as a standstill as it was the Princess’s turn to advance towards her hosts. She seemed even more nervous than she had when riding, John noted with sympathy, even trembling a little.

“King Mycroft, Prince Sherlock, you honour me with your invitation.”

“And you honour us with your presence, my Lady. Nevertheless, I would appreciate to know where my fiancée is.”

John’s eyes widened as the regent closed his with a slightly pained expression and the young woman who wasn’t the princess paused mid-curtsey, cringing a little. Finally the former came forward once more, obviously choosing his words with care.

“I believe you’ve met Princess Adler once before, King Mycroft. Like the bird her family is named after, she doesn’t like to be restrained by anything else than her own whims. She left two days before we did, leaving us with a simple note and no means of tracking her, and told us she would meet us here – we had little choice but to believe her and hope she’d indeed be present today. When we didn’t see her as we approached the castle, her closest confident -” Here he gestured at the long-haired woman in the middle of the room “- pleaded with us to give her a little more time and persuaded us that she could imitate her mannerisms well enough to fool you. Obviously she overestimated her own acting skills.”

The Lady they were referring to winced once more and John frowned a little at the unwarranted attack. Sherlock threw him an amused look – he could almost hear the Prince chiding him once more about his too-soft heart – and spoke for the first time, his baritone voice filling the room and silencing the whispers that had begun to spread.

“I think the Princess isn’t as far as you think, Lord Astair. You, Guard, please come closer.”

The young man that approached was the one John had noticed earlier, and as he spoke his voice reflected his appearance perfectly, being oddly pitched between the masculine and the feminine and extremely mischievous.

“Oh, very well, I guess the game is up. I see you won’t fall for the same tricks twice, Sherlock.”

Both Lord Astair and the Princess’s confident immediately started advancing on the handsome young man.

“Irene! Have you been staying with us under this guise all along?”

“My Lady, this isn’t proper! Please allow me to see to your dress right away!”

The Princess only laughed, a clear bell of a laugh, taking off the official guard headwear with obvious relish and shaking her head a little to free her hair. 

“My Lords, it’s indeed a pleasure to see you again! Sherlock, I hope you have kept the painting of me I’d left you with.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed a little at what was obviously meant to be a jab, though one John didn’t understand.

“Actually, I thought it only proper to ensure your future husband would be the one privileged enough to possess such an item.”

The Princess seemed unsure rather than mocking for the first time since John had unknowingly met her but the King rose before she could answer, trying to defuse what was slowly starting to resemble chaos.

“Perhaps we should adjourn the rest of the ceremony to tomorrow; I do believe our guests are tired. I’m looking forward to seeing you at our welcoming banquet tonight.”

As Sherlock jumped from his throne and made his way to the side-door usually reserved for servants, sharply gesturing to make sure John would follow him, he could have sworn the Princess’s eyes were studying him curiously. 

***

Back in their rooms, John was once more reminded of his determination to understand what was causing his Prince’s black mood as Sherlock threw himself in an almost-empty armchair, his temporary triumph at unmasking Princess Adler’s disguise having been replaced by petulance once again. The knight’s subtle queries of the last days had brought nothing in terms of new information, so he decided to go to the crux of the matter.

“Princess Adler certainly appears to be a determined young woman.”

A non-committal grunt. John remembered however how Sherlock himself had explained that the best way to make an unwilling witness talk was to make him or her want to contradict you – he figured that being complementary enough towards the Princess would accomplish that, considering the rivalry the two royals seemed to be engaged in.

“Undoubtedly mischievous, but then I’d assume nothing less would interest your brother.” 

Another small, bored sound.

“Extremely beautiful as well - she seems a good match for the King.”

“She certainly is.”

The Prince’s voice rang with sincerity and bitterness; this wasn’t the answer John had been expecting.

“The perfect Princess. The perfect bride. Only fair for a perfect King.”

Three weeks ago John would have misunderstood those sentences. Now, however, he thought he knew Sherlock enough now to understand that the man didn’t desire the Princess, no matter how lovely she was. Yet, he understood in a sudden moment of clarity, it was still a matter of jealousy. Not knowing where this insight came from, he knew he had to check whether he was right all the same.

“Would your parents have thought so as well?”

He didn’t need to turn his head to know Sherlock had frozen for a second, the way he always did when John said something to surprise him. Astonishment was usually a good reaction to receive from the Prince, one he thrived on – it meant that for a short while he held the too-intelligent man’s total interest. He wondered, however, whether he had gone too far this time, and only realised he had been holding his breath when the Prince’s answer caused him to exhale in relief. 

“Certainly they would have. Their only question would have been to know why it hadn’t happened sooner and what I was waiting for to follow in my dear big brother’s humongous footsteps.”

Sherlock suddenly seemed younger than he had ever had, even tugging absently at his hair, a nervous habit John had never seen him indulge in before. John wasn’t certain how to answer – thankfully, it appeared what Sherlock really needed was for someone to listen. 

“They always had trouble understanding us – the way we saw the world was certainly quite alien to them. Ironically enough, Mycroft was my only ally then; the only one who got it. It changed as they died, though. Mycroft was only 16, but all of a sudden he was the King, not just my brother. He had no more time for the experiments we used to escape from our lessons to conduct. He started talking politics, when before we had both held them for boring. And when he understood that it was the only thing that would work, he began using our parents’ memories to make me listen to him. ‘Sherlock, don’t act so rebellious, you know how it all upset Mummy.’ ‘Father wouldn’t have wanted you to react this way, Sherlock.’”

The scene had painted himself in sharp colours against John’s closed lids as he listened and his heart hurt quite a bit as he almost saw the boys his land’s leaders had been and imagined them thrown much too early and much too alone in a world of power and politics. The idea of Mycroft using their late parents’ memories to get his little brother to listen to him was unpalatable, but then so was his mind’s vision of a young King who had had to change his very nature so as to conform to his parents’ wishes.

“This wedding – it’s simply his latest attack. His latest pointed barb about what our parents wanted from us, what he apparently finds so easy to give them. His latest reminder of how disappointed they would have been in me.”

Sherlock was practically unmoving except for his long, agile fingers, whose slightly jerky movements revealed his anxiety as they fluttered away and drew half-shaped forms to punctuate his story. At first John found himself at a loss of what he could possibly answer this strange and unknown version of his master, who seemed more vulnerable and yet more tightly-guarded than ever before. But truly, only one thing could ever only distract the Prince – and so John did his best to present him with a mystery that could effectively attract his attention.

“As another second child, I understand the feeling of always being compared to one’s elder and being found lacking. Yet consider that your sibling was at least another boy.”

It worked like a charm – the strange insecurity that lingered in Sherlock’s eyes, like he expected to be mocked and shut out now that he had confided to his feelings, swiftly disappeared as he analysed John’s curious comment.

“But your boots, I thought…and you didn’t correct me.”

John smiled a little at that. Trust the man to remember such a detail almost two months after their meeting.

“I didn’t, because you were right. Or at least, you’re supposed to be. Officially, I do have an older brother. Harry, however, was born a girl.”

Sherlock straightened a little on his armchair, obviously interested in this unusual titbit of information about his childhood.

“Why would your parents pretend such a thing?”

“When Harry – or Harriet, should I say – was born, there were complications; my mother was told she wouldn’t be able to bear any more children. My father needed an heir, but loved his spouse too much to remarry, so he raised Harry as he would have done a son. I was born seven years later, but I was premature; and my father kept the charade until they were sure I was going to survive. By the time I was six and finally robust enough, it was too late. Harry is quite strong-willed, you see, and she enjoyed the freedom life as a boy afforded her. She liked sword-fighting far too much to drop it for embroidery and she categorically refused to ‘become a girl’. In any case, I believe she makes a far better heir than I would ever have done.” John smiled a little bitterly.

“What did your parents do when it was time to give her away, then?”

John’s smile became more sincere at the query.

“Oh, they married her.”

Once again, a slight show of surprise.

“How did they?”

“They married Harriet far under her station, hoping the promise of a title would allow them to avoid the young bride making a scandal, and it did. The last I heard, Clara and my sister were living quite happily together.”

The silence that fell between them then was sudden to say the least and should probably have felt awkward, but it really didn’t – perhaps because they had both said all they needed to. Sherlock had offered his knight one of the keys necessary to understand the enigmatic man a little better and John had reciprocated by not directly acknowledging the rare gift it was; and somehow, nothing seemed to summarize their complicated relationship better than this moment.

***

Contrary to what Sherlock had predicted, once the first ceremonies had been attended John and he had little to do in terms of “boring political matters”. Oh, John had no doubt that Sherlock’s presence would have been accepted or was even usually required in many of the reunions that took place during those two weeks before the wedding, but the King knew how to pick his battles and thus left the Prince well enough alone. 

John was torn between being relieved – considering he was apparently Sherlock’s only confident as well as his knight he was expected to attend the meetings his master did, no matter that it should have been the role of the Prince’s manservant, but he didn’t have access to a comfortable chair - and a bit disappointed, as the two meetings they had been forced to join in had allowed him to commiserate in lowered voices with Princess Adler’s confident, Lady Sarah, over what it meant to serve a master with such unusual character. Considering that both official gatherings had put Sherlock in the blackest mood he had yet to see the Prince in he finally settled on grateful, even if the absence of cases and John’s inability to make a decent sparring partner with his hurt arm meant Sherlock was often dreadfully bored and therefore terribly annoying. 

Sherlock’s mood reflected others’ for once – tension was spreading on the castle as the wedding approached, a dark feeling far from the joyful anticipation John had been vaguely expecting. A metaphorical storm seemed to be slowly brewing and he found himself wishing more than once that it would finally unleash itself, no matter the casualties. 

When the rain finally started falling, however, he found himself far too drenched to feel any kind of relief.

***

Most people acted before thinking. They were ruled by their instincts, merely reacting to stimuli rather than trying to influence them. It was an important part of the reason Sherlock despised most of humanity and certainly nothing he’d ever thought he’d envy. But he had been wrong, because here was John, white and not breathing and on the floor, and he really had to do something but still his brain wouldn’t let his body act before it had analysed the scene – white lips, poison, mug of ale slowly spilling its contents on the floor, most probable means of poisoning, he had to make sure there was enough left to analyse what the toxic had been, the door hadn’t been forced, someone had been invited in or had the key, or the beverage had been altered in the kitchen, was the drink left for him or for John, would a physician come soon enough to save his knight? And then a stray thought; this is just like this time in the forest when John had been hurt. But so much worse. 

The boy who had been emptying the nearest bedchambers of their dirty laundry was rather surprised to see the Prince leave his room mere seconds after entering it, and more surprised still to have his shoulder grasped by a vice-like hand.

“Billy. A-There’s a…John. Poison. Physician.” The Prince choked out. Billy did not waste time with questions – he dropped the laundry he still held, turned heels and ran. Another few seconds and the corridor was empty once more, except for a pile of dirtied sheets and the echo of a serving boy’s footsteps. 

***

“Breathe. Come on, John, breathe.”

This was totally inefficient, his mind berated him even as he pressed two long fingers to John’s neck. His knight’s mind wasn’t flinching away from an emotional shock, it had been driven away by poison; addressing him would make no difference to his current state. And yet, even as he tried ineffectually to make the other man’s body reject the noxious substance, he couldn’t hold back the litany of nonsensical words that emerged from his lips.

“Spit it out, John. My knight won’t be beaten by some chemical substance. Come on, I thought you were actually looking forward to the ridiculous celebrations next week? You must be the only person in this castle that does. I’m almost certain Mycroft expects you to make sure I behave for the wedding, and you shouldn’t disappoint your King. Believe me, he’s a vindictive man.” 

Even as he desperately tried to make sure his knight would live to see another moon, a small part of Sherlock’s mind couldn’t help but notice and analyse his own peculiar reactions. Elevated heart rate. Slightly clammy hands. A light-headed feeling not unlike vertigo. Those were all symptoms which would usually result from physical activity, but this couldn’t be the case right then. Could they really be the result of mere emotional distress? John could die, he thought experimentally, and his breath caught a little as the most extraordinary pain violently stabbed at his chest. Heart attack, he immediately diagnosed, but the pain didn’t repeat itself, merely slowly recessing and leaving a persisting ache behind. This truly was only his answer to the possibility of his knight’s demise. Fascinating.

Suddenly soft brown hands were working alongside his; Sherlock’s eyes snapped up to see that the royal physician was carefully turning John over, making him ingest a mixture he didn’t recognize. It managed what the Prince hadn’t and made the knight vomit violently, and the sight made him sigh in partial relief. Surely John would be fine. They couldn’t have been too late. It was unconceivable.

“Sire. Sire!”

He blinked and found that the scene had changed once more; Ella had put John in a half-sitting position and was now impatiently gesturing at his knight’s feet.

“We need to put him in the bed. I have to examine him more fully.”

Sherlock only nodded, finding to his surprise when he got to his feet that the limbs he had painstakingly trained into submission for the past twenty years were disobeying him as they hadn’t since sudden growth had left him a thin, gangly lad. Ella’s lips thinned a little as he uncharacteristically stumbled to John’s feet but it seemed to be in concern rather than in disapprobation or even in surprise as she said nothing. Soon enough the knight was lying on the Prince’s large bed, his head almost swallowed by the too soft pillows Sherlock always threw on the floor before he attempted to sleep. Ella efficiently took John’s pulse, tested his pupils’ dilatation and felt his forehead.

“Atropa Belladonna, without a doubt. Rapid pulse but his eyes are slow to respond, and his skin is flushed but dry. Still, I wonder…”

“Shouldn’t you be administering morphine as a counter-poison then, instead of wondering?” cut Sherlock, his hands twitching with the need to act, to make sure by himself that his knight would be fine. Ella wasted no time to wonder how the Prince knew the way to counteract belladonna, knowing he frequently dabbled into more-or-less sinister experiments concerning dangerous substances. 

“I certainly should, if Knight Watson was in any real danger. As it is, all his symptoms are benign enough, the quantity of poison he must have swallowed was truly minimal. I sincerely believe he wouldn’t have died even if he hadn’t been found out in time; his body would have managed to get rid of it on his own, although he’d have been weak for a few days. As it is, he should wake soon enough – make sure the person who’ll take care of him knows he’s to be kept hydrated and away from any other potentially dangerous drinks.” From the look on her face she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear John had come to be into such a state because he had set his mug too close to the Prince’s most recent experimentation.

Sherlock was aware however that his knight knew to be extremely cautious with anything resembling a chemical substance in their chambers and that he’d have sent for a fresh mug of ale from the kitchen rather than reheating a beverage left in their rooms unattended – this had to be a deliberate attempt on John’s life. Or rather on his health, considering the dosage hadn’t been fatal. 

But why such an attack? Poison slipped in a mug of ale, this certainly felt personal. John had only been in the capital for less than two lunar cycles – who could have desired revenge? A slighted lover wasn’t likely – Sherlock would have noticed if John had found someone deserving of his attention. He also doubted John had actual enemies, considering how ridiculously good-natured the man was. No, this was certainly an attempt to make Sherlock react – here he had to pause in his reflexions to unclench his fist, quite surprised to feel his nails had made themselves at home in the skin of his palm. To scare him, perhaps. To warn him? It didn’t make much sense, considering Sherlock wasn’t working on any case for the King right now, having refused the four last ones offered to him as being too boring before carefully avoiding his brother’s smirk as the larger man implied without a word that his ennui had more to do with his knight’s hurt shoulder than the Prince would like to admit.

He absently let his hand rest on his knight’s forehead as he thought, a whisper of a smile touching his lips as the lines on John’s face faded a little at the coolness of the touch. According to Physician Thompson, John had fallen into a healing sleep and wouldn’t wake for hours, but Sherlock still found himself strangely reluctant to leave the sick man’s bedside. He nonetheless called Billy, who’d been hovering near the door with his eyes wide open all the while, to take over his task. He had some work to do after all. The attacker, whoever he or she was, had made a grave mistake. Because he’d stop at nothing to find out who had hurt his knight.

And he knew precisely where to start his investigation.

***

Culverton Smith was certainly an interesting character; his apothecary was renowned for providing its most faithful clients with anything they needed in less than a fortnight, no matter how dubiously legal. The manager with the twisted smile had actually been investigated more than once by the royal guard but they had never managed to find anything against him. The Prince had little doubt that the man’s place was in the dungeons somewhere, or possibly on the gibbet; but Smith’s gossiping tongue held far too much interest for him to try and arrest the man. There wasn’t anything that the man wouldn’t reveal for gold, and he held information about places and people Sherlock would never have allowed his street kids to investigate.

This time however, as he enquired about possible poisoners, threats or bribes seemed to have tied Smith’s tongue to the roof of his mouth, and instead of the five-minute conversation Sherlock had envisioned he found himself debating for next to an hour with the man. In the end it took him attentively studying the other man’s seedy shop and making precise threats as to what he could expose to the royal guard that would be impossible to hide before even the bumbling idiots could get there to even get one name.

And as Sherlock left the apothecary, his long coat floating a little after him in his haste, he tucked this name very close to his brain, murmuring it once to himself just to be able to taste it on his tongue.

“Moriarty.”

It was time to play.

*** 

Sherlock was back at John’s bedside before the man had even opened his eyes, a part of him he hadn’t even realized had tensed uncoiling at the sight of the colour on his knight’s cheeks and the sound of his even breaths. Ella had been right; John would soon be back to full health. 

Now that he had reassured himself of John’s continued existence he should have gone to the kitchens, to ascertain whether the servants had seen anything or anyone suspicious there, or to Mycroft, to discuss the situation and the measures that would have to be taken. The thought that John could reawaken at any moment to find him gone, however, made his inwards twist in a definitively unpleasant way, and he finally sent Billy on his way with a gold coin the kitchen boy gasped over before settling on the chair the boy had just left. There would be time to observe and deduce later – right now, ridiculously enough, nothing seemed quite as important as to make sure that John was safe and breathing. 

***

John’s head felt heavy as he regained consciousness but he wasn’t allowed even a moment of sweet obliviousness as to what had taken place before his world had blacked out. He had drunk a little ale and immediately noticed its altered taste – belladonna extract, most probably. He appeared to have passed out before he could spit it out, as his mind went immediately blank as he tried to remember what had happened next. It didn’t explain, however, how he had ended up in a bed that was too soft to be his and with what appeared to be a moist cloth on his brow; and finally his curiosity was too much for him to resist. He tried to open his eyes, groaning a little as the act made twin bolts of pain violently stab his brain. 

Stubbornly he blinked again, placing a shaking hand on the bed beside him and trying to raise his body a little from where he felt like he was drowning in a too-soft pillow. The hand that took hold of his right elbow was unexpected but welcome, especially as he instantly recognised the spindly fingers holding him up. Part of him loosened in relief as he established that the Prince hadn’t been poisoned as well and as he finally managed to open his eyes he found that he already had a small smile on his face. 

“Sh-” The rest of the man’s name proved to be too much for him and he started to cough painfully, his throat parched. Spying a glass of water on a nearby table he gestured a little towards it, feeling relief as the Prince pressed it in his hand a short while later. The cool liquid felt rather heavenly as it slid down his throat and he tried with limited success to blink his gratefulness at his friend.

“What happened?”

“You were poisoned. Belladonna extract, if we’re to believe Physician Thompson, but not a truly dangerous amount – she didn’t administer morphine. You’ve been out for a few hours and I have a few rather urgent questions to ask you.”

John signalled by a nod his willingness to answer Sherlock’s queries, but the questions, when they came, didn’t seem so urgent. Sherlock wanted to make sure that John had received the mug directly from the kitchen and to know whether he remembered who had brought it up but he already seemed to have figured out John’s answers. Certainly this pale imitation of an interrogatory could be another example of Sherlock’s refusal to “make bricks without clay”, as he had already referred in front of John to the way people conjectured before they had data; but John preferred to think that Sherlock’s actions obeyed another, much simpler reasoning.

As Sherlock asked him whom he could trust to look after him as he left for the kitchen and he asked for either Lady Hudson or Lady Sarah he didn’t really let himself ponder what it meant that Sherlock had stayed at his side until he was sure John would be fine, nor what the pinched line the Prince’s mouth had become at the mention of the Princess’s maid meant, but a slight smile stubbornly stayed on his features: in spite of his earlier misadventures, the life before him suddenly seemed rather full of possibilities.

***

Just as in many other places, Sherlock knew exactly whom to talk to in order to determine if anything suspicious had happened in the royal kitchens. Janet was a tiny wisp of a girl, looking no more than nine when she was soon to be fourteen and more often sick than in good health. The main cook had an uncharacteristic weakness for the girl’s pale blue eyes and more often than not Janet’s only duties for the day were to make sure that the fire wouldn’t go out and occasionally to stir the large pot of soup that simmered perpetually in the kitchens. Although the girl was grateful for the reprieve she was also quite often bored and made it a game of hers to observe what happened around her – a habit Sherlock encouraged and sometimes rewarded with a few sweets or coins. It certainly wasn’t the first time he had used the girl’s testimony in one of his cases – this time, however, the young girl didn’t have much to tell him.

“I didn’t really see anyone weird, Sire. There’s been a lot of activity around here for the past week, with all the new nobles and servants and everything, but that’s all.”

“Can you remember which ones of the new servants were here this afternoon, then? Around two hours after the sun reached its peek?”

“Well the only one I can remember seeing is the Princess’s lady, the nice one with the beautiful dress. I know she was there because she gave me a silver coin when I went to look for a basin for the Princess. A real silver coin, look!”

Sherlock frowned a little at the mention of Lady Sarah before dismissing the notion as paranoia. He had seen nothing in her interactions with John that would indicate that she wished his knight any harm, after all. Still, he couldn’t help being a little displeased at the thought that she was currently taking care of John, no matter that the reason for his unhappiness was unknown even to him. 

Janet had started fidgeting a little in the lasting silence and he concentrated again on the matters at hand.

“What about Sir Moran, the regent’s manservant? An elderly man, with a high forehead and a grizzled moustache.”

“Indeed I saw him, Sire.”

Sherlock leaned forward in interest and excitement, not noticing the girl’s alarm at his eagerness.

“When then?”

“A-ah, around eight this morning I believe. He’s quite often crossing the kitchens, actually – every morning and evening, from what I can tell. He’s not coming on any errand either, even though he always comes right before we send the guests’ meals up.”

“But could he have come a third time today, at the time we’ve discussed?”

“I-I’m not sure he did, Sire. Certainly he could have, as I was busy looking for a basin for Princess Adler.”

Sherlock only nodded, his lips narrowed in thought, as he rose from the chair he had sat in across the girl, absently holding out a gold coin to her. He barely took notice of her widened eyes and enthusiastic thanks, the facts already repeating themselves endlessly in his mind. He was clearly missing a large part of this particular puzzle – and he knew precisely who could enlighten him.

With a moue of disquiet, Prince Sherlock went in search of his brother.

***

“Why was Princess Adler so concerned about this castle’s security?”

“Bohemia is a rich land. Very rich, in fact, and powerful. I’m sure you’re aware of that fact.”

His brother’s answer to his brusque question could have seemed obscure to some, but he had long since grown used to the man’s elliptic reasoning. 

“Thus her alliance with us isn’t motivated by her need to reinforce her Kingdom against outside enemies. She’s been threatened from within.”

“No matter how remarkable Princess Adler is, as a woman she can’t truly have power over Bohemia before she marries. Hence our rushed engagement.”

“The regent then?”

“A distant uncle from the Princess, and a trusted friend of her late father. His mind, however, seems to have been slowly poisoned by his closest confident – a certain Sebastian Moran, I believe.”

“I’ve heard of him. An ex-colonel, isn’t he?”

“Indeed. A most dangerous man, from what I understand. Yet he’s not the one we should truly concern ourselves with. There’s been talk of another, more sinister individual…”

As always when he thought his name, Sherlock felt a tremor that was half-hate and half pure fascination.

“Moriarty.”

His brother’s eyes widened the slightest bit in a rare show of surprise before narrowing again.

“I’m certain I don’t want to know how you came to be in possession of this information, Sherlock. In any case, yes, Moriarty’s name has come up more than once, including once in the Princess’s own mouth. She seems to believe he’d stop at nothing to make sure Bohemia stays under its regent’s control, considering she’s not fallen pray to Colonel Moran’s influence.”

Sherlock couldn’t help his mouth tightening a little as he thought about what Moriarty had already done.

“Indeed.”

His tone was non-committal enough but Mycroft picked on his anger, just as he had known he would.

“It had occurred to me to wonder why you would suddenly be so concerned about Princess Adler’s reproaches concerning our security. What has happened?”

“John was poisoned, earlier this day. Belladonna - not a mortal amount.”

“This is most curious. Why would Moriarty issue such a warning? You’ve never encountered him before, and certainly he would have been better off with you ignoring him.”

Mycroft’s voice was loftily pointing out all the discrepancies in the tentative analysis Sherlock was making of this situation and hearing them spoken aloud only made Sherlock this more uneasy. Still, he answered decisively.

“A challenge. A mere provocation. He’s bored.”

“And he doesn’t know what he’s unleashed, does he?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m sure you do.” Mycroft slowly made his way to him from where he’d been standing at the window, eyebrow raised inquisitively, and Sherlock was abruptly reminded of everything that annoyed him in his older brother. “You do seem to have formed an unusual…attachment to this knight of yours.”

Sherlock didn’t give him the pleasure of a reaction.

“He has proven to be unexpectedly useful in my line of duty.”

“But has he really? From what I can see, he’s managed to get injured and poisoned in the space of two weeks, taking you out of duty as well.”

“You’re being quite unfair, brother of mine. If your spies did their job correctly you’d know that John Watson’s arm was injured as he tried to save my life – and certainly even you wouldn’t blame him for being poisoned. For all we know the cup was altered because the culpable thought I intended to drink it.”

“Be as it may, your two months trial is getting to an end – and I must confess I’m still not convinced that this situation should be allowed to continue.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow as his brother carelessly showed his hand, smiling slightly in triumph.

“Now I understand – this is your latest incentive to get me to do what you want. Be more obedient, Sherlock, and you’ll get to keep your knight. Rather naïve of you, however, to think that I wouldn’t be able to ensure John’s continued presence by myself.”

“But would you, Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s smirk promptly disappeared.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt that you’d be able to triple his current wages without it being a strain on your personal finances before many years – but what about his status? He hasn’t been officially dubbed, and as far as I remember my presence is still necessary for this kind of ceremonies.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to object but Mycroft cut him off once more.

“You think he’d stay anyway? Certainly you fulfill his need for adventure – but what about the need for official recognition his childhood in a poor noble family has left him with? You may not care a whit about your reputation, Sherlock, but what would he expect people to think if he remained at the castle – at your service and paid by you – without any official role? People might talk.”

“People do little else.”

His answer was flippant but he was clearly shaken – at least to those who could read him. Seeing that, Mycroft softened a little.

“In any case, there’s no need to discuss it now; there are still a few days until the end of the second lunar cycle you were allowed. I’ll upgrade security, especially around the kitchens, although you must understand that too much cautiousness would only vex our guests – something I cannot afford right now, with Princess Adler’s uncle’s mind poisoned against us by the colonel. He’d only be too willing to call off this wedding if we gave the slightest hint that we mistrust them.”

As Sherlock stiffly nodded and stalked out of the room, Mycroft gave a slow smile. Even in the brief span of their conversation, Sherlock had shown feelings, muted as they were, that he hadn’t seen in his younger brother since their parents’ demise – and as unexpected as this development was, he knew exactly whom he had to thank for it.

He left a small sigh escape him, however, as he reflected on the matters at hand. The attack on Sherlock’s knight was an unexpected opening move and he had to think on his answer. It was also very possible, he thought with a slightly amused twist of his lips as he wrote a message summoning the royal physician to his personal chambers, that more players than he had expected were involved. 

***

“Princess Adler.”

As always, this strange tension. It shivered through the room, curdled along his spine, whispered inaudibly of battlefields he had never seen and never thought he’d want to see. 

“King Mycroft.”

“I trust you’ve found your quarters to be to your convenience?”

Except for the Princess’s warning about the dangers she thought herself to be in, they hadn’t talked alone since the delegation’s arrival.

“Quite. I particularly appreciate the effort made in ensuring my tranquillity; those quarters are wonderfully isolated, I dare say I’ve rarely slept as peacefully at home as I have those last few nights.”

Torches and candles had already been lit up for an hour in the castle, and in their vacillating light the circles that even the best-applied powder couldn’t hide seemed deeper than ever under the Princess’s eyes.

“This I am glad to hear. I hope the meals you’ve chosen to have here have been just as satisfactory and taken in the same quietude.”

“Indeed. I think my maid, Lady Sarah, would join me in saying we’ve been spoilt with feasts every time we sent for even the simplest collation.”

“Lady Sarah is settling in fine as well, then? I understand such a change in ventures can destabilise even the sturdiest soul.”

“Oh, she has. Thank you for your concern, but truly as my companion and friend of many years she’s certainly used to my shenanigans by now. I never had any doubt that she’d stay as calm and steadfast as always in the new and exciting circumstances of this union.”

“I’m sorry that inflexible traditions will keep her from participating to the two main feasts from as close as you’d perhaps prefer, but I assure you she’ll enjoy the table she’ll be sat at. I’ve also noticed you haven’t brought any secondary taster with you, so I’ve taken the liberty of assigning you one of ours for the two evenings of the ceremony.”

A long blink was the only visible indication of what Mycroft was already aware of; Princess Adler hadn’t known of every tradition surrounding a royal marriage in Baker Kingdom.

“I’m certain this will be just fine, King Mycroft. Thank you very much for your solicitude this evening. If you will excuse my rudeness, however, I believe it’s getting late, and I have much to do before I can rest.”

They both nodded as the King took his leave from his fiancée, acknowledging what they hadn’t said and yet both perfectly heard. Usually impeccably observant, Mycroft didn’t notice as he left that his hand had curled the slightest bit, as if holding an invisible chess pawn.

***

The wedding was to be held on the morrow, and John mostly felt relieved. For the past week, ever since he had woken up on Sherlock’s bed to find the Prince at his bedside, Sherlock had behaved in a way John would have dubbed as overprotective if he had been describing anyone else. Sherlock certainly didn’t hover or even asked about his health, but he rarely left his knight alone and never when anyone else visited, only leaving to further investigate the events that had led to John’s poisoning – or at least John supposed that’s what he was doing, having not been put in the confidence in spite of his many queries. 

John had pretty much been confined to his rooms by Ella, barring a daily hour-long walk they generally used to visit Lestrade so Sherlock could torture the man a little, in spite of John’s efforts to make him lay off the long-suffering Captain who seemed more and more strained as the wedding approached – John could only suppose securing the castle in those conditions was nearly impossible. The main consequence of his confinement was that the Prince Was Bored. John had quickly learnt, after finding all the too-soft pillows of the princely bed clinically hacked to pieces by a masterfully-wielded sword, that this was generally a bad thing. 

He had tried to make Sherlock take interest in a game of chess; Sherlock had beaten him in five minutes and sighed a little in the way that meant he honestly pitied most of humanity for not having his brain. He had then made the Prince play without four of his main pieces; he had been checkmated in less than half-an-hour. He had finally forced Sherlock to sit with his back to the chessboard and announce aloud where his pieces should be set, which had amused him for about an afternoon as he beat John three more times. 

Then the next morning he had taken four of the beautifully-carved white pawns and made them suffer a tragic demise in a truly horrific chemical experiment, and John had understood why the page he had asked for the board had been so hesitant about entrusting it to him.

He had even asked Lady Hudson to give them the pleasure of her company for a cup of tea, but while watching her interact with the boy she had more-or-less raised and reminisce on a few childhood anecdotes about the two brothers had been fascinating, her well-meant cooing over his still-tired form and the disapproving glances she had shot at their untidy bedchambers had left him too exhausted to want to repeat the experience anytime soon.

Almost as a last resort he had tried to engage Sherlock in what had to be the main topic of conversation everywhere in the castle outside their rooms, wondering aloud which type of financial and military bond for the two Kingdoms would be announced by the new couple as they took their vows and rejoicing in the idea of eating the traditional rich fare at the feast. Sherlock had first raised a brow at his extensive knowledge about traditional bonds before enjoining him to stop “trying to fill his mind with useless information” and engaging in a truly bewildering explanation (somehow including attics) of why he certainly couldn’t afford to remember just how many days a royal ceremony was supposed to last (five, although two were considered as the heart of the ritual) or the ingredients in the traditional soup that would be served on the day of the official bonding (even though he did raise his head when he heard John talking about Ellebora leaves, especially as the knight explained only the royal table was served the soup containing the potentially poisonous plant, laying it back down when he heard the recipe included no more than a single symbolic leaf). 

It would have probably been better for the two of them if John had made Sherlock admit that the danger John was in was pretty minor and that he could leave their chambers without risking finding his knight a corpse when he returned – he was pretty sure that he could have convinced Sherlock, had he really tried. He had been held back, however, by the truly distressed look Sherlock sported every time he even brought up the idea; somehow John suspected that there was more to this than a need to make sure he was safe, but he couldn’t think of anything that’d make the other man feel insecure and desirous to spend all his spare time in his company. 

He had finally, a last resort, suggested Sherlock read to him – the Prince had few books in his room but they were well-thumbed, showing that he did have some interest in literature. Sherlock had shot him an unreadable look before agreeing, seizing a large opus and starting to read aloud. John was honest enough to admit that the experience was pleasant, to say the least – Sherlock’s voice was compelling at any time, and hearing him slowly enunciate words he couldn’t understand was definitively…invigorating. 

“Si on me presse de dire pourquoi je l’aimais, je sens que cela ne se peut exprimer qu’en répondant: «Parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi.»”

It also made him curious. 

“This is not Latin. Nor Greek.”

Sherlock sent the quicksilver of his smile in John’s direction.

“One of the modern written languages. The philosophers’ latest works reflect our societies’ change, John. The written word finally transcribes what our languages have become and the frontier between the analphabetic crowd and the man of letter is slowly but surely thinning. We’re heading towards a new world – and soon enough every child will be taught how to read.”

John was more than a little surprised – Sherlock had always seemed totally apolitical and for him to show this amount of interest for anything else than his chemical experiments was unusual to say the least. 

“What does it mean, then? What you just read?”

Sherlock absently let his fingers run on the yellowed page before him, obviously searching for an exact-enough translation.

“If I am to tell why I loved him, I feel it could only be expressed by answering “Because it was him, because it was me.” The…friendship between Montaigne and La Boétie is said by many to have been legendary.” Sherlock looked right at him then and John had to turn away from the piercing gaze; when he finally found it in himself to look back at the Prince, Sherlock had turned his attention back to the large opus in his hands and started reading aloud once more.

Surprisingly this latest activity seemed to interest the Prince enough to make sure that he’d stay still for the rest of the afternoon and John soon relaxed in the armchair he had dragged by the fire, the unknown words forming a strange melody as Sherlock kept reading. He never saw the Prince’s brow unwillingly relax from the concentrated frown it had settled in as he raised his head from his book to find John fast asleep, never heard him quietly lay the tome aside and cross the room to leave, never felt the touch of the three fingertips Sherlock had let brush his forehead for a mere second. 

Three hours later, when John woke up, the Prince was nowhere to be seen; nonetheless, inexplicably, he felt better-rested than he had in almost a week. 

***

Sherlock certainly didn’t share his brother’s disdain for what Mycroft called “leg-work” with a particularly regal twist of his lips; the thrill of the chase was one of the headiest sensations he knew of, just after the extremely satisfying moment when all the clues just clicked into place to reveal the solution to a case. He had nonetheless refused to resort to such measures until now, certain his skills would allow him to shed light on the matter of John’s poisoning without leaving their rooms, something he found himself inexplicably reluctant to do since his knight had been attacked and Mycroft hat “reminded” him the two months they had been allowed were coming to an end.

It was ungracefully that he had finally admitted to himself that the answer to this particular mystery eluded him, but admit it he had – and that’s why he was now very carefully following the traces of Colonel Moran in the forest outside the south side of the castle, aware even as he cautiously made his way on the well-trodden path the man had created in the last two weeks that he might well be – oh, the indignity – walking into a trap.

Sherlock had acknowledged that the results of this risky endeavour would probably be disappointing; the forest wasn’t sufficiently thick to allow him to follow Moran from close enough to be able to distinctly see the man receive his instructions through a message carried by man or bird or to listen to any eventual conversations. Yet when his prey turned around and went back to the castle without having made any effort to contact anyway he felt his fingers curl themselves slightly in frustration. He was reasonably certain Moran hadn’t known he was being tailed, and the familiarity the Colonel had with the path showed that this was indeed where he had been going every morning and every evening in the past two weeks. It may very well have been that Sherlock was merely unlucky – Moriarty only contacted his agent occasionally and Moran went everyday to avoid suspicion or because he ignored when he’d need to be in the forest. 

Nonetheless a half-formed thought niggled at him, the feeling that there was something he had forgotten, a precious detail he had ignored; every time he sought to seize the illusive idea, it escaped him once more, until he was filled with the kind of vague frustration he usually let escape through sword-training. His training partner being unavailable – and here Sherlock carefully disregarded the fact he had managed to train for 21 years before meeting John – he headed to their rooms once more. Certainly watching his knight trying to find a way to entertain him and thus curb his most destructive tendencies was amusing enough to help him unwind.

***

As a knight, even a temporary one, John was supposed to be allowed to sit down and enjoy his meal. As Sherlock’s recently-poisoned knight, however, he had to stand very near his Master, basically once more assuring the duties of a manservant and sending wry little glances to Sarah, who had actually been allowed to seat for the main feasts – someone else was apparently in charge of serving and testing the food of Princess Adler. He couldn’t feel too resentful, however, mainly because he knew the Prince had tried to make King Mycroft let him join the royal table and because he had feared for a moment the King would accommodate his brother’s latest fancy; having to stand for a few hours was much less unpleasant than actually sitting at the aforementioned table and having everyone staring at you. 

Standing where he was, slightly in the shadows, let him observe the festivities, the complex tension that seemed to emanate from the newly-bound couple, Captain Lestrade’s apparently involuntary glances towards their King as he stood a few feet away from the table on guard duty (perhaps John had been hasty in assuming it was the weight of his duty that had preoccupied him those past days) and Sherlock’s ostensibly-bored face or, when the Prince forgot himself, inquisitive looks thrown at any element that could appear to be out-of-place. 

It also meant that he was one of the first to reach Princess Adler’s side when she turned extremely pale and softly slumped over the side of her throne, her knife clattering harmlessly on the floor.

***

“TREASON! TREASON!”

The sound was a growl rather than a word as the Regent of Bohemia surged to his feet, standing protectively over the body of the fallen Princess, drawing up his sword and pointing it at King Mycroft, The Freak Prince and the Prince’s knight in a smooth movement that belied his age. 

Sally, who had spent most of the feast hoping for it to be over soon so that she could rest her feet a little and eat her share of the food, discretely stepped in sudden interest towards the royal table in order to see the scene better. 

“Please, Lord Astair.” The King’s voice immediately resonated. “I understand your panic, but please consider that on the eve of an alliance that would have strengthened both our Kingdoms, neither my brother nor I would have had any reason to harm the Princess. Please stay back, so that my Physician may examine Princess Irene.”

Lord Astair reluctantly stepped back as the Royal Physician quickly knelt near the Princess but didn’t draw back his sword, throwing wild accusing glances to anyone who’d meet his eyes and not ceasing in his vituperations. 

“The only thing I know is that her taster is fine and you’re the only two who had access to her plate! Logic has nothing to do with poisoning, and while I may believe you wouldn’t do such a thing, I’m afraid I can’t say the same of your brother! Rumours of his singularity have reached even the Kingdom of Bohemia, and his behaviour as we stayed there hasn’t caused me to trust him much – his conspicuous absence in much of the wedding preparations led me to think he begrudges our Kingdoms this ceremony, and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to discover his resentment had finally made him abandon the little sanity he had!”

“He has a point there.” Was murmured in her ear, and Sally startled a little before turning to see Anderson had apparently abandoned his post by the main door to see what the commotion was about. If the poisoner’s goal was to throw the castle into chaos, she reflected wryly, their methods were certainly efficient.

“Keep your trap shut and let me listen – this is getting interesting.” She ordered, shivering just the slightest as that made him chuckle against her neck. 

***

Sherlock showed no outward reaction whatsoever, even as he almost heard the last part of the trap that had been slowly enclosing on them click into place, when Lord Astair gave voice to the suspicions his confident had patiently nurtured in him in the last weeks, or perhaps months. Their opponent had finally showed his hand, and his move was a bold one – a poisoning that ignored her taster to touch the Princess only, a poison which had found its way to a plate resting between Mycroft’s and his without them noticing anything. 

He only emerged from his thoughts in order to hear his brother proclaiming he was certain Sherlock was innocent and encouraging Lord Astair to let them study the circumstances of the attack. The chaos that reigned supreme in the heavily-decorated room allowed for nothing that could be called an investigation but he could hear the main cook, immediately sought by an astute guard – Atkins? Hopkins? – whose face Sherlock memorized simply because anything other than total incompetence among the Guards deserved a notice, wailing about the quality of the ingredients and especially of the symbolic Ellebora leaf John had mentioned the soup contained – a dry leaf would have indeed been slightly more potent than a fresh one, but anyway even then it would have done no damage. The Princess’s taster had been brought forward as well and he attested to his perfect health, sounding more than a little frightened. 

There was simply too much noise, too many things to pay attention to, and surely Sherlock couldn’t be expected to think in such a maelstrom? He would have liked to scream at them to shut up, to turn away, but even he was aware of the impossibility of such a demand. John was stepping closer, though, and at this moment the shorter man seemed a broad-enough barrier to keep the rest on the world at bay; so closing his eyes, Sherlock concentrated on his knight’s solid, reassuring presence, on the light grip John had on his shoulder, on the calm rhythm of the man’s breathing and started thinking. 

Moran’s forays into the woods, twice a day. John, on the floor, pale and barely breathing. The only thing I know is that her taster is fine and you’re the only two who had access to her plate! Lady Sarah’s presence in the kitchen. Only the freshest ingredients, and I picked the Ellebora leaf for the soup myself Sire, I swear! Lady Sarah, at John’s bedside after his poisoning. The brew was under constant surveillance! Irene’s disguise. The Princess looks tired, Sherlock, don’t you think? John had asked as they waited for her to make her way through the hall to reach her future husband. Moriarty. The table where Lady Sarah and Moran had both been eating, a respectful twenty-five feet away from the royal table - none of them had gotten up during the feast. I only regret traditions keep me from having Lady Sarah next to me on this fine day, Irene had murmured when Mycroft had asked her if all was well. The only thing I know is that her taster is fine! His own unsuccessful following of Moran in the woods the day before. John’s rueful look as Sherlock dismissed his explanations of the royal wedding’s ceremonial rituals as irrelevant.

And then he felt it – this exquisite rush of pure triumph as the disjointed parts of the puzzle joined to form a clear picture where there had only been a disorientating jumble of voices, colours, events and facts. And then he talked for the first time since Irene had fallen, knowing – feeling, with a small shiver of excitement John would have reprimanded him for had he known, that time itself was against them.

“Lady Sarah, would you answer a few of my questions?”

He hadn’t spoken loudly, especially when compared to Lord Astair’s increasingly belligerent declamations, and yet a hush seemed to fall on the room as the young woman, who had earlier been stopped by a guard on her frantic way to the royal table, finally got to the table where Ella had made guards put down the Princess and was now desperately administering the most common antidotes to her, reaching a trembling hand towards her Lady’s hair.

“Of course, Sire.” Her voice was almost steady, and Sherlock almost admired her for it.

“You’ve been Princess Irene’s taster for a few years now?”

“Her confident, maid and tester, yes Sire.” She was defensive now.

“And you exercised those functions for the past two weeks as well, is that correct?”

“Yes Sire.”

“Did the Princess know it was tradition for another taster to be appointed to each member of the royal families in such a wedding?”

“Indeed she did not, Sire. I believe she was told this by the King a few days ago – he also graciously offered her the use of one of the royal tasters.”

***

John had to admit he was intrigued – his heart had clenched as Sherlock had snapped out of his thoughts with a familiar look of triumph on his face only to turn to Lady Sarah, but the direction the questioning had taken was unexpected to say the least. 

“So it would be correct to assume that if you had both been led to consume a little of a certain ingredient every morning and every evening during your entire stay here, an ingredient that would interact negatively with a dish only served at the royal table, she’d be the only guest to suffer from such an interaction?”

Understanding the question wasn’t truly meant for her, Lady Sarah remained silent even as the room, which had become almost quiet, erupted once more in indistinct chattering. Lord Astair seemed ready to start protesting once more, but fell silent as Sherlock asked the guards to escort Colonel Moran to the royal table.

“I have many witnesses ready to explain how you love to take a walk at a very precise hour every morning and evening, Colonel Moran, going through the kitchen to reach the forest shortly before the meals are served to the guests’ rooms. Do you confirm those are your habits?”

The imposing man was very careful not to struggle in the guards’ grip, but his eyes skipped rapidly from side to side.  
“I do – I’ve asked as we arrived what the shortest way to the forest was and the kitchen staff was kind enough to let me use their door to the outside every day. Those walks have been a habit for a long while now, you see.”

“Certainly. But see, Colonel Moran, I do believe those walks weren’t as innocent as they may seem. I understand that you have a bit of a reputation as a Physician yourself, explaining the bundle of herbs we’ll find if we search your quarters, as I’ve sent Billy to do a little while ago – ah, there he is. Good work, Billy; please hand me this small brown leather bag.”

All seemed to stand still once more as the Prince sifted through the herbs contained in the Regent’s advisor’s bag only to hold up a few small violet flowers with long stems and dark leaves.

“May I ask our Royal Physician to identify this plant, as well as the effects of its roots – which have been in this case carefully cut - when combined with even the smallest amount of an Ellebora leaf?”

Physician Thompson cautiously took hold of the small plant, studying it quickly und probably unnecessarily as any child who had already been in the forest could have identified the common flower. 

“The amethy flower – taken alone and in small quantities, the roots are a common excitant. Lady Sarah, did you and the Princess have any trouble sleeping in the past two weeks?” She barely waited for the Lady’s nod before she whirled back to look at the Princess. “And its interaction with the Ellebora leaf – oh, we don’t have much time!”

Before the Physician - and therefore Lord Astair and a good part of the onlookers - could start to panic, John saw the King raise a calm hand and, bewilderingly, turn to him. And even though he couldn’t fathom what this latest development meant, he knew what he had to do – and thus, ignoring Sherlock’s unreadable look, he offered Physician Thompson the small bottle he had found on his pillow three days sooner, accompanied with an enigmatic note – “Just in case”. 

***

The sheer impossibility of John knowing which remedy would be needed made Sherlock feel almost light-headed as he saw his brother nod reassuringly to the unsure Physician and heard her relieved announcement shortly after – the Princess’s heartbeat had gone back to normal and her skin wasn’t as pale anymore. This shock, this second where he couldn’t help but wonder if John had had anything to do with Moriarty’s intrigue – the thought feeling very much like someone had firmly seized his heart so as to viciously squeeze it – meant he understood an instant too late what was at stake. Already Lord Astair was reaching to the man he had earlier ignored in order to thank him for saving his niece’s life, and already Mycroft was overruling John’s dazed protests.

“I doubt this young man will accept any of your rewards, Lord Astair. I do hope, however, that he will allow me to make him Assistant to the Court Physician – I hear you have always cultivated hope of following this noble profession, Sir Watson, and as I understand it your role as a Knight was a non-official trial that was to be over on the morrow.”

John’s eyes flew to meet his at that, clearly uncertain, but for once Sherlock didn’t want to meet them as Mycroft’s total victory was made totally clear. Sherlock may have seemed to direct the events this evening, but his brother had obviously known about the poison, and sufficiently in advance to make sure he’d be able to make good on his threat to steal John from him even as he cured his fiancée. 

Suddenly wishing to be nowhere near the vicinity of the King, Sherlock turned to leave, throwing a last, vicious parting shot at Lady Sarah.

“I only have one question left. Why did you poison my knight?”

And as the eyes of the Lady in question glistened with tears for the very first time this evening, as John whirled to look at her, more hurt and confused than ever, Sherlock finally made his exit. 

***

John had rarely felt as exhausted. Princess Adler, still to be monitored closely, had been put to bed, the Colonel had been thrown in a cell, men had been sent out on a search for an eventual accomplice awaiting for Moran’s signal in what even John could recognize as a frankly ridiculous tentative. He had had a long and painful conversation with Lady Sarah, who explained with a firm voice but without meeting his eyes that her Mistress had wanted Sherlock to be alert and to be aware of a Moriarty’s existence (apparently this was a name he was supposed to know so he didn’t interrupt her, carefully memorising it) and had decided a direct threat to what he held dear was the best way to make sure he felt implicated. 

His discussion with the King had been even longer and much more confusing. He had learnt what Sherlock had apparently forgotten to tell him, that he had never been officially dubbed or recognised as a knight; that his salary as Assistant Royal Physician would be even higher than it had been those two months; and finally that he was free to choose his own sleeping quarters. King Mycroft looked at him very intently as he explained this last part and for the first time John, as a brother himself, thought he understood this man’s motives just a little bit better. 

It was then, and only then, that John went off in search of his Prince.

***

Sherlock was standing as he entered, facing the unlit hearth, a subtle tension playing across his wiry shoulders – John wondered, as his heart twisted just a bit, how long he had been waiting like this, and he felt the last of his annoyance with the Prince fade away. Sherlock turned to face him and spoke before John could.

“You’re not my knight anymore.”

It could have been a rejection. Sherlock’s voice was unreadable but his hands gave him away, instinctively flexing as if desiring to reach out for John. 

“Apparently, I never was.” John said, smiling a bit as he crossed the room in three steps and seized the Prince’s wrists to try and calm them. “But then it seems my new functions will allow for quite a bit of free time, so I guess if you need some help on your cases I will probably be available.”

Sherlock gave what John had a long time ago named his shock-induced blink and for the first time he admitted to himself that one of the reasons he liked surprising Sherlock was because seeing the shadows those long lashes struck on the man’s high cheekbones was terribly enticing. And then he didn’t have any time to reflect on hands or eyelashes anymore because they were kissing, and though a small part of him couldn’t help reflecting on the most surprising parts of this (he had never kissed anyone so tall before, nor so thin, and Sherlock’s lips were somehow warmer than any his had ever touched) most of his attention was caught by the ways Sherlock was incomparably Sherlock and inevitably familiar. Because the Prince had freed his right hand, which was now possessively gripping John’s neck and pressing him closer to Sherlock, but his left wrist stayed in John’s firm grip, a gesture of trust rather than submission. And though there was certainly passion in their embrace, Sherlock’s tongue inquisitively seeking his out and exploring the roof of his mouth was clearly him studying John, trying to understand and comprehend his friend in yet another way.

It was a totally novel experience, and yet a ridiculously recognizable one. It also seemed to him to have been what he had been searching for his whole life, he whispered between kisses as they tumbled into bed, guessing rather than seeing Sherlock’s raised eyebrow at this absurd notion in the darkened room, feeling against his neck the smile the Prince couldn’t contain. 

***

Much later – for once, the Prince hadn’t jumped from his bed at dawn, and not so much as a page had come to knock at their door – John awoke to find his nose engulfed in a warm and tickling nest of raven-black hair and a stupid smile already stuck on his lips.

Even later, as they finally roused themselves, Sherlock received a missive he immediately held out to John: impossibly, Moran had escaped from his cell. Sherlock looked at his lover and smiled a slow, dangerous smile at him; Moriarty, he whispered, and John’s heart, unaccountably, skipped a beat. But then the smile directed at him turned a bit brighter, and Sherlock, uncharacteristically, tugged slightly on both of his hands:

“Come on then, John; the Game is On!”

The End


End file.
